


Getaway

by Bastet5



Series: The Wild Hunt [24]
Category: FBI: Most Wanted (TV 2020)
Genre: Gen, Team Dynamics, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27109894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bastet5/pseuds/Bastet5
Summary: January 2019As winter deepens, the team finds themselves on the hunt for a father-and-son team of armed robbers, who are on the run after escaping from a prison transport and killing all their guards. While the father is a hardened criminal, the son seems to be manipulated youngster in over his head. The case takes a personal turn for Jess, who sympathizes with the son, as the case brings up memories from his own childhood, but then the case takes another turn when it appears that the son might not be the victim after all ... but the ringleader.
Relationships: Clinton Skye & Original Female Character(s), Jess LaCroix & Clinton Skye
Series: The Wild Hunt [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678864
Comments: 22
Kudos: 10





	1. Monday, January 21: Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> Has everyone seen this new article (or similar ones) about FBI: Most Wanted Season 2: https://deadline.com/2020/10/amy-carlson-terry-oquinn-cast-fbi-most-wanted-cbs-return-blue-bloods-season-2-1234593845/?
> 
> I am lengthening my posting schedule to once a week on Mondays for a few weeks, so Chapter 2 of Getaway will come on Monday the 26th. Once I have some time to get some more stories written, I'll be able to post more frequently again.
> 
> Also, I think story summaries are sometimes the hardest and most annoying part of a new story to write.
> 
> In other random news, it's snowing where I live and has been lightly most of the day, and it's October! And no, I don't live in Alaska or Maine.

It was the silence that woke Kateri. Silence, which was in and of itself was quite startling, considering that Kateri lived in the Bronx, and the Bronx in particular, even in her older neighborhood, and New York City generally were not known for being quite places. Noises outside, noises from surrounding apartments, people noises, mechanical noises, car noises, weather noises. There were always noises, which meant that the silence was … unusual.

New York, like most other big cities, never slept … not completely, at least.

Kateri lay awake for a moment, starring at the shadows across the ceiling of her bedroom and wondering what had changed to make it suddenly so quiet inside. _Power’s not out_. The light from the street outside dimly filtered in through cracks in the blinds, sending jagged patterns of light and dark across her bedroom. The nightlight in the hall— _so I don’t break my foot running it into something going to the bathroom at 2am_ —and the glowing green numbers on her clock were still visible, also. _Not the power. So what?_

Finally, it hit her.

_The radiator!!!!_

Kateri lived in an older apartment complex, which meant that her apartment was steam-heated via a clunky radiator in the living room and the huge boiler in the basement. The problem of radiators, however, besides the fact that they were clunky and ugly and probably … _just probably? Make that almost certainly …_ older than Kateri herself, was that radiators made noises. Lots of noises. Strange noises. Every winter without fail. Shimmies. Hisses. Clanks. Bangs. Whistles. Noises that had given her the willies and made her go for a gun more than once because she thought she wasn’t alone.

Radiators, as anyone who has had the misfortune to live in an apartment with one knows, took some getting used to.[1]

The noises in all their endless varieties and combinations were annoying, frustrating, and, at times, even a little freaky if they came in the wees hours of the night or woke you from a dream.

The one thing radiators were not … _at least my radiator_ was quiet.

And thus, why around 4am that morning, the silence in her apartment woke Kateri.

_Bloody h**l._

_The radiator. My bloody radiator._

_Tonight of all nights it has to cut out._

_Is it just mine that’s the problem?_

_Oh, bloody h**l, could it be the boiler?_

Muttering imprecations and a few choice curses against the radiator, the boiler, and the weather under her breath, Kateri threw back the covers, emerging from within her cocoon of blankets, shivered hard at the chill already in the air … _I think I’m going to be regret my usual cost-cutting measure of not turning the heat up too high_ … stuffed her feet into her slippers, and headed out into the living room.

The radiator, which when on, was usually boiling hot … literally … had already grown cool when Kateri gingerly held her hand nearby, which meant that it had probably stopped sometimes earlier, _and I just now woke up. Bloody h**l_.

 _Today of all bloody days for the stupid radiator to quit_.

Kateri moved from squatting by the radiator and perched on the edge of the couch. Now wide awake … _cold’s got a way of waking you up …_ she drummed her fingers on her chin and contemplated what to do next.

A cold snap had settled over New York like a not-at-all warm blanket, and after a high in the low 40s Sunday morning, the temperatures had been dropping steadily … _and somewhat precipitously_ … ever since. If the temperatures were still even in the double digits, Kateri would have been flabbergasted. _Don’t think it’s even supposed to hit freezing again until Wednesday_.

It was not a good time for the radiator or, worse, the boiler, to break down, especially considering that Kateri’s old apartment complex wasn’t the best insulated either.

_Not a good time for heating problems._

There was a good chance it was going to get quite chilly … _temps already dropping in here_ … before the heating was fixed … _depending on how long it takes._

_Bloody h**l_

With a sigh, a groan, and more grumbled imprecations against the heating system, Kateri returned to her bedroom and put in a quick call to maintenance’s emergency voicemail system.

 _Well, I’ll just go crash at work, I guess_.

It did not take that long for Kateri to change into her work clothes, pull on a heavy coat, and grab her go-bag, and then out the door she went.

Considering the hour of the morning, Kateri’s usually at least 35-minute commute to Federal Plaza and FBI Headquarters took about twenty minutes, and by 4:45am Kateri was pulling into the parking garage outside the team’s muster room. All was still and quiet, and there were only a handful of cars still in the parking garage, belonging to those hapless techs and agents who either liked sleeping at their desks or in their offices or had been caught pulling an all-nighter. 

_Almost eerie, it’s so bloody quiet and dark in here!_ Kateri thought to herself, shivering in the cold pre-dawn air, which was even more of a shock after the warmth of her truck, as she let herself into the team’s muster room with her key and relocked the door behind herself.

Not bothering to find the light-switch just to get across the room to go back to bed, Kateri pulled a small tac-light from her pocket and quickly and carefully … _don’t break your foot ramming it into something …_ navigated across the room to the back where the beds were. Dropping her bag down beside one at random, Kateri plopped down onto the bed with a tired sigh and started pulling off her boots. _Little cool in here. Better than at home, though_. Boots off, she scrambled under the covers and was quickly asleep.

Kateri woke again about 7am. Her first act of the morning … _the real morning. 3am is not morning_ … was to call maintenance and check on the heating in her building. Joy, oh, joy, it was the basement boiler that was the problem, not her radiator, and maintenance’s promise to have the boiler back up and running as soon as possible didn’t fill her with confidence. _Their conceptions of time some days are … unusual. Hopefully it won’t take too long today_.

Having slept at HQ once or twice before, it was simple to run through an abbreviated version of her morning routine to kill time before the others arrived and it was time for paperwork. _The bane of our existence. A necessary evil, but still an evil_. Breakfast of one granola bar, instant oatmeal from the cabinet, and instant coffee also from the jar in the cabinet. _Blech_. _Too cold to go over to Starbucks_. Freshen up int the bathroom _so you look like a human being who didn’t just sleep at the office part of the night._ Clean out and organize your locker _because entropy yet again_. Run up and down multiple flights of stairs multiple times in place of running outside because again _it’s too bloody cold for that_. _I was born in Quebec. Doesn’t mean I’m a bloody polar bear!_

* * *

About half past noon, about forty-five minutes before the team had planned to meet up for a late lunch, which Jess would be bringing, and paperwork, Kateri was sitting on the couch in the team’s muster room reading one of the battered paperbacks she usually kept tucked in her go-bag, when her phone buzzed with an incoming text. It was a text from Jess. _We’ve got a case. Welllllll … that’s one way to get out of paperwork. Easier than my way last September. **[2]** That was a near-disaster_. Kateri pushed herself to her feet, gave a long, luxurious stretch, and headed towards her locker.

_Better make sure I’ve got everything._

_I’ve got time to kill anyway_

Barnes, who lived the closest to HQ, was, as often happened, the next to arrive. If Kateri hadn’t had the radiator problem and come into work early … _very early_ … Barnes would have been the first to arrive. She paused just inside the door from the garage, the sound of her heeled boots suddenly stopping, and Kateri turned from her locker.

“You’re here early, Kat,” said the team’s second.

 _You’re so right, and you don’t even know it_.

Kateri snorted wryly, a half-grin, half-smirk curling up one corner of her mouth, and then turned her attention back to her locker and her search for the cleaning rag for her knives. “Understatement of the day, actually.” She glanced down at her watch for a moment, “Been here since before 5am.”

_Just not by choice._

_A cool room is nice for sleeping, but there’s cool, and then there’s bloody cold._

_Too many more hours, and my apartment would probably be the latter, not the former._

That drew an exclamation of shocked surprise from Barnes as she sat her bag down in her usual seat at the conference table and came over to her own locker. “What the h**l for?”

“The boiler end in my apartment building decided now was as a good a time as any to go on the fritz, and I’m not a bloody polar bear,” Kateri responded, her words dripping with annoyance and sarcasm both, as she finally found the cleaning rag she wanted somehow buried under two boxes of ammo. _Why the h**l did I put it there?_

“Oh d**n,” Barnes winced, “Very sorry, Kat. Any idea when it’ll be fixed?”

“‘As soon as possible,’ maintenance said as usual. What that means time-wise, who the h**l knows,” Kateri grumbled, crouching down to pull out her boot knife, “Sometimes their time estimates are about as accurate as the DC Metro’s definition of ‘momentarily’ when it comes to fixing broken trains.” She took a seat on the bench and began polishing her knife.

That got a sympathetic chuckle. “It’s been a long time since I was in DC,” Barnes replied, pulling several things from her locker and moving back to her chair to tuck them into her bag, “so what’s that definition?”

“Who the h**l knows that either. DC metro trains have problems with unfortunately frequent regularity, after which the trains will be moving ‘momentarily,’ by which is meant anything from minutes to hours.”

_As if I didn’t dislike riding the subway anyway. Small train cars, too many people, enclosed tunnels. Ugh._

_Yet one more reason I hate DC. Stupid chronically malfunctioning train system_.

 _MTA’s not that much better in some ways. Prob’ly worse in others_.

The conversation turned to more pleasant topics, and the two women were talking about the latest pictures and stories of Anais when Kenny and Hana arrived within moments of each other, arguing playfully about … something. Without context, their discussion made little sense to Kateri, but it was all in good fun from the looks on their faces and the tones of their voices, and watching them was always interesting … and often amusing.

_They act like brother and sister some days. They argue and tease and poke and tease some more, but heaven help whoever goes after one and doesn’t pay attention to the other!_

Clinton and the boss arrived fifteen or twenty minutes later, entering from the garage with a blast of cold air and bearing real coffee and bags of Chinese take-out for the team to eat over a quick lunch while they debriefed. Boxes of food were debagged and set down among the piles of papers that had been growing on the table. (The promised paperwork … _that we get to put off until we finish the case and there’s yet more paperwork to do_ … had been moved aside but had been replaced by case files and other papers for this case … _whatever it is_.) The money for these meals on paperwork days came out of a communal pot and _is money well-spent_.

Food orders were distributed, the usual for everyone. _We’re all creatures of habit most of the time. Some restaurants, we’ve almost gotten to the point of stopping asking for orders._ Chicken fried rice for Kateri. Something spicey and fried for Kenny. _I can smell the spice from across the table._ The smell was strong enough to almost make her eyes water. Something with noodles for Barnes. Shrimp something for Hana, and then whatever Jess and Clinton had.

Then it was time for the briefing. _What person did what horrible thing this time?_

Or in this case, _what people … interesting … a team_. Hana had thrown two Most Wanted posters up onto the boards: Blake Wilson, an older, grizzled man with the look of experience in his face, and Steven Wilson, a youngster who looked like trouble just from the look in his eyes and the set of his jaw.

 _Unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, murder, and armed robbery_.

 _Well, this’ll be interesting_.

“Our newest poster boys are the father and son team of Blake and Steven Wilson,” Hana announced, “They were on their way from Minnesota to Connecticut to face charges for a bank heist in New Haven.”

_Bloody h**l, that’s a long drive. Least two full days._

_Prison transports don’t exactly have all the comforts of home either_.

“They overpowered the guards and left them for dead in a van,” Hana continued, bringing up pictures of the van itself over top the father’s poster, “which was found next to an abandoned barn in Woodbridge. Shot point blank with their Glock 19s.”

 _Bloody h**l_. Kateri grimaced as she saw the bloody wounds on the guards’ clothes.

Then she noticed something odd.

The guards were trussed up like chickens AND shot.

_You don’t shoot somebody and then truss ‘em up._

_You don’t truss ‘em up and then shoot ‘em generally either._

_Maybe they fought back? Tried to, at least … maybe._

_Can’t do much with those chain on, though, I wouldn’t think._

_Weird…_

“Do you have footage on the New Haven bank job?” Jess asked, taking off his glasses and climbing to his feet. _Leave yourself time to eat, boss_.

Hana did, and with only a few taps that footage replaced that crime scene photos of the prison transport van. “The skinny one with the 45, that’s sonny boy, Steven. The rifleman with the linebacker build, that’s Blake. He’s been in and out of prison his whole life for bank robbery. He completed a twelve-year stint last year.”

 _Twelve years? Bloody h**l_.

_And already back at it … Career criminal._

_Yet more proof that just locking people up doesn’t always do much … or anything_.

“Wasted no time getting back in the saddle,” Jess noted, still staring intently at the screen, what looked to be a small frown on his face, “What’s Steven’s story?”

_How does a kid that age get caught up in all this._

_Besides bad parents dragging their kids down into the muck with ‘em?_

“Kid’s 18. No record,” Hana replied.

_Until New Haven, that is._

_Bloody h**l_.

“Until Daddy came back into his life,” said Jess, “What’s that on the security guard?”

The footage from the New Haven bank job was still playing on the left screen, and Kateri looked up from her fried rice and her perusal of the case file to see what Jess had asked about. In the footage, Stevie was almost manhandling the security guard, around whose neck something oddly shaped was hanging.

“A bomb vest,” Hana answered.

_Seriously?_

_For a bank job … and a small one?_

“That’s how they managed to get into the vault,” The tech genius continued, “They got away with just under a million in cash.”

_That’s a lot._

_You can do and get a lot in the underworld for that much_.

 _A whole bloody lot_.

“They were caught two weeks later at a fishing resort in Minnesota.”

Kenny, who was sitting in the chair on Kateri’s left and had just finished eating, pushed himself to his feet, Kateri scooting in towards the table to make sure he had room to pass. “Rob a bank. Go fishing. Talk about living the life,” he snarked.

“Well, their plan was to escape across to Canada,” Hana replied—Kateri’s head came up at the mention of her homeland—“but young Steven decided to splash out on a couple of thousand-dollar escorts. He got drunk, and the cops were called.”

_Ah, young and stupid … and thinking with the wrong part of his anatomy._

Kateri snorted wryly, shaking her head as she laid her fork down in her now empty take-out container and started boxing up her trash. “Prostitutes and alcohol, the downfall of many a would-be criminal.”

“Blake would have known better,” Jess tacked on, returning to his seat and his food, as Kenny wandered off toward his locker, “A career criminal, hardened ex-con. How were they planning to cross into Canada?”

“Two expertly forged passports,” Hana replied.

_Not hard to get that and transport with a million bucks._

_Canadian-American border is the longest undefended border in the world, they say._

_I know several people who could provide the papers and the transport … for people in this area_.

“If Blakes’ looking to get out of the country again,” Clinton added, “He’s going to need another 50 for new passports. Maybe more.”

“Emphasis on the more if he’s in a hurry,” Kateri emphasized, “Papers like that, you can do ‘em well or quickly, generally. Forgers are going to want a lot of extra cash to do both at the same time.”

Jess nodded, and Barnes noted, still starring at the screen, “Won’t be long until they’re robbing banks again.”

 _One quick way of getting the needed cash … unless you get caught … again_.

“Let’s get some TECS border stops,[3] BOLOS, photos to all ports of entry, on the northern border,” Jess ordered.

“On it,” called Kenny, returning to the table and dropping his bag in his seat.

Kateri, who was already packed courtesy of her early-morning wake-up call and extra hours at HQ, had remained in her seat, idly studying the case file. Now she looked up again. “Want some help?” _Northern border’s kinda bloody long. Over 5000 miles. Bloody large number of crossing points, ‘specially if you factor in the not legal ones_.

“Sure,” Kenny agreed, “Plenty enough for the both of us.”

“You can ride with us,” said Kateri glancing over at her partner, who nodded agreement, “We can split the work up in the car.”

“Kid might be looking to get off the train,” Jess commented, scribbling something down on his pad of paper, “Killing guards—likely the dad’s handiwork,”— _maybe, though I’ve seen some crazy kids in my time_ —“Stevie is just a college boy in it for the money and the party girls”— _unsurprisingly for a kid that age into his first taste of trouble_. _Kinda life goes to your head before you realize you’re in too deep_ —“Might not have bargained for this kind of violence. We have any family he might reach out to?” Jess looked over towards Hana’s desk to which the tech genius had returned a minute earlier.

“A mother in Bridgeport. She left Blake twelve years ago when he was sent away.”

_Guess we’re heading to Bridgeport._

* * *

Bridgeport, Connecticut, was an old, historic seaport located about sixty-five miles up the coast of Long Island Sound from New York City. On a good day, one could get from one city to the other in an hour and ten minutes; on a bad day, it was more like two hours.

_Thankfully, today is a good day, because we’ll be running out of daylight in a couple more hours._

_The joys of January!_

Kateri and Kenny spent the car-ride to Bridgeport almost continuously on their phones and laptops. The information on the Wilsons needed to go to a lot of places and be imputed into multiple systems, and that took time, and with fugitives on the run and bodies already piling up, time was in short supply.

_119 legal border crossings with Canada! Bloody h**l, I’d forgotten there were so many._

_That’s not even touching the illegal crossings._

_Bloody lot of those, too!_

Putting TECS border stops in place meant dealing with Homeland, which took time. Putting out a BOLO and distributing photos also took time, because there were so many crossings— _the information has to get to them all_ —and they had to deal with the American agencies and the Canadian Border Service Agency and _probably a few more groups I haven’t thought about yet._

The cars had reached the outskirts of Bridgeport around 3pm, and Clinton was winding his way through traffic toward the location where the bus was going to be parked … _if it’s not there already. I think they got off before us_. Kateri had just finished her latest call, as she and Kenny slowly ticked things off their list. Kenny was still on hold with whatever his latest call was.

 _Why is hold music always so terrible?_ Kateri could hear occasional snatches of music from Kenny’s phone, and the faces he was making were clearly visible in the rear-view mirror. She had preferences music-wise but could tolerate a lot as long as the music she disliked was soft, but hold music was always, it seemed, (A) awful and (B) deafeningly loud.

Finally, Kenny’s face cleared, and distant music changed to a tiny voice, but there was still a problem. A moment later, he suddenly growled something under his breath, causing Kateri to look up from the laptop and pad of paper balanced in her lap. His very frustrated face had returned.

_Now what happened?_

“Kat, how do you say ‘Do you speak English?’”

Kateri met his eyes in the rear-view mirror and cocked one eyebrow, a wry smile curling up one corner of her mouth, “In what language exactly, Kenny? Who are you talking to?”

 _I can only speak three languages fluently, but that phrase … I know that in … let’s see, French, Mohawk, Spanish, German, Arabic (two dialects), and … I think I might be forgetting one_.

“Sorry,” Kenny rolled his eyes, probably at himself, “French. The Canadians.”

 _Well, that’s convenient_.

_Nice when problems are easily solvable._

Kateri reached one hand blindly back over her shoulder, “I’m done with my call. Just making a couple notes. Let me have the phone.”

Cool plastic touched her hand, and Kateri pulled her hand back, phone in her tight grasp, and pressed Kenny’s phone to her ear. “Bonjour, je suis l'agent spécial Kateri Wood du Federal Bureau of Investigation.”[4] Keeping up her French had always been easier than keeping up Mohawk— _Québécois might cringe at my accent, but what the h**l_ —and it was easy to switch from English into French.

“Thanks,” said Kenny once Kateri had finished the call some minutes later and handed him his phone back, “I think I managed to find the only one who can’t speak English.”

_Uhhhhhhh … probably not … ‘Specially if they didn’t know Americans were calling._

Kateri shook her head, “Canadians who can’t speak English isn’t as rare as you think, especially since we’re mainly dealing with crossings into Quebec.”

A slight smirk was building on Clinton’s face. _He’s heard this rant out of me before_.

“Really?”

“Less than 40 percent of Québécois speak English, Kenny. I didn’t speak English originally.”

That got an interested hum, but there was more work to do, so Kateri was forced to cut her friendly rant short. _Just because it’s Canada doesn’t mean everyone speaks English. Just because it’s America doesn’t mean everyone speaks English_. Clinton, Kenny, and Kateri reached the bus a few minutes after the others. Hana had already been dropped off by Jess and Barnes, who left immediately to speak to Blake Wilson’s ex-wife.

While waiting for Jess and Barnes to return with any leads from the mother, the others turned to other tasks. Kateri finished notifying border patrol on both sides of the Canadian-American border and making sure the information about and pictures of the Blakes were fully distributed and all relevant alerts had been sent out. Kenny turned to researching Blakes’ former associates, _because you don’t pull off big heists successfully by yourself. Those jobs take teamwork_. Hana was doing something that necessitated a lot of clacking keys, and Clinton was talking to someone with Prisons.

About 4pm, there was a noise at the door, and Kateri looked up and around as she finished stretching out the blooming ache in her back.

 _You’ve been hunching again. Your posture is terrible._ She figured she had picked up the bad habit during her years undercover. Certain body languages postures—like hunching to make yourself look smaller and curling your shoulders—could, if things went bad, make you look weak and vulnerable but, if things were according to plan, could also make you look like less of a threat and make you less noticeable. _Last thing you want to do on an undercover op is look like a would-be or wannabe cop._

 _Isdá **[5]**_ _would fuss._ As quickly as that thought had crossed Kateri’s mind, it made her stop in her proverbial tracks, wondering why she exactly thought that. Her mother had died long enough ago that Kateri simply didn’t remember her mother well enough to know whether her mother would have fussed about bad posture. _Maybe it’s a Mom-thing to fuss about bad posture?_

_I don’t know._

_Thoughts for another time._

Jess with Barnes behind him appeared in mid-discussion about … something. _Oh, good, hopefully an update_. Kateri pushed her chair away from the conference table and rose, stretching out her back again, making sure she didn’t bump into her pacing partner as she did so.

“Steven was in a vulnerable place in his life,” Jess was saying as he entered. He made straight for the kitchenet without even taking off his coat first, “Rejected by colleges. A half-a**ed plan,”— _okay, you found out something_ —“He would have been ripe for the picking by his old man.” _What did the mother cough up?_

_Aside from the penpal angle that Jess already texted about?_

Barnes, instead, made straight for the conference table around which Clinton, still on a call, was pacing and draped her coat around the chair next to Kateri’s.

“Hey, boss,” Kenny inserted, “I tracked down all of Blake’'s known associates. All dead ends. Literally. Blake’s the last man standin’.”

_And isn’t that interesting …_

_And more than little suspicious … probably_.

Clinton finished his call and made his way back down the bus toward the others, Kateri in his wake. “I asked New Haven’s DOC,[6]” he began once Kenny finished, “about Blake's penpals. There’s one he’s kept on the string for the last three years. She calls herself his fiancé.” He gestured with his phone toward Hana’s desk, “Prison is sending us scans of their correspondence.”

 _His fiancé? Ewwwwwwwww._ Kateri gave an internal shudder at the very thought.

_Don’t understand this idea of hookin’ up with convicts._

_Talk about a messed-up relationship._

_I’d rather be single_.

“Uh, this I’ve gotta see,” Hana drawled, sarcasm dripping from every word, as she swiveled her chair back towards her desk straight behind Kenny’s.

All gathered around Hana’s desk to see what the prison had sent, as Clinton continued, “Her name is Jerri Eaton, 28. Lives in Cranston, Rhode Island.”

_28 … talk about an age different. Ugh._

Page after page of hand-written letters appeared on Hana’s screen next to a picture of the woman herself, a Caucasian woman with fancy brown hair, too much makeup and lipstick, and oversized earrings. The letters were about as over the top as Jerri Eaton herself.

_Honey bear. Honey bear. Who calls their significant other ‘honey bear’????_

_Seriously?????????_

One of Kateri’s eyebrows started crawling her up her forehead, and she hoped she didn’t look as vaguely bug-eyed as she felt.

_Seriously?????????_

_Who writes schlock like this?_

Then Hana started reading aloud lines from the most-recent letter and somehow managed to do it without laughing or snorting, _though I can’t tell if she’s managing it with a straight face. From the head motions, probably not_ , “I experience with you a miraculous spiritual unity, a commingling of inner lives.”

 _Seriously? You sound like an overblown philosophy textbook_.

Kateri leaned her weight on the back of Kenny’s chair and bit her lip to keep from laughing or smirking or making other undignified faces.

“Spiritual unity?” Barnes commented dryly, “Fancy way of saying aiding and abetting a fugitive.”

_“The ocean fades away.”_

_“I have no beginnings or endings.”_

_“I snapped back to my body.”_

_Scratch the philosophy … should this be X-rated?_

_Because this is starting to sound like some very fancily worded explicit novels my VERY short-lived college roommate liked to read in her spare time._

_I think my stomach just did a flip._

Shaking her head ruefully, Kateri patted Kenny’s shoulder and then returned to her chair. “Any other news from the mother?” She asked Jess, who had taken a seat at the other end of the conference table. _Anything that hasn’t gotten explain or referenced yet?_

“Stevie was never in trouble until his father got out of prison and came looking for him,” Jess stated, starting to make some notes on a pad of paper, “He was only six when his father was sent away. Young enough for hero worship.”

 _Manipulation. Helps explain the ripe for the picking comment_.

“Sadly familiar,” Kateri noted with a curl of her lip, “Seen it in gangs many times before, though not always between father and son.”

That got a snort of agreement from Barnes as she retook her seat between Kateri and Jess. “Apparently Stevie also has a very ‘fragile’ ego, his mother says. It doesn’t help that his brother has his doctorate in sustainable energy from Stanford.”

Now both eyebrows flew up towards her hairline, and Kateri almost choked on a mouthful of, thankfully, not scalding hot coffee. “Yikes,” she croaked, “Talk about an inferiority complex in the making.”

 _This is going to be an interesting case_.

Jess started handing out more instructions. There were leads to track down, one Jerri Eaton to find, search warrants to get.

The list went on, and Kateri bent to her work.

_I still don’t get it._

_A convict for a significant other?_

_Why the h**l?_

_I just don’t get it_.

 _This is going to be an interesting case_ _… or a very strange one._

* * *

[1] <https://www.brickunderground.com/live/guide-to-nyc-radiator-noises>

[2] How to Get Out of Paperwork … The Hard Way.

[3] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TECS>

[4] "Hello, I'm Special Agent Kateri Wood with the Federal Bureau of Investigation." Blame Google Translate for any mistakes.

[5] Mohawk for Mom.

[6] Department of Corrections.


	2. Tuesday, January 22: Day 2

Morning came too bloody early considering when sleeping began, but after several years of the same, Kateri still wondered why she kept mentally grumbling about the early wake-up calls most every time they came. _Probably because you get up this bloody early as a general habit, but you don’t generally stay up to the wee hours of the morning_. (Jess, at least, was nice about rousting them all out of bed and not likely to cause Kateri’s first action when waking to be to go for her gun within arm’s length.) _It’s still too bloody early_. Kateri scrubbed her hands across her face, muffling a face-breaking yawn, shoved a few stray locks of hair out of her face, and accepted Kenny’s offered hand to help her up off the floor.

_Okay. What do I need to go do?_

_Gotta make sure Clinton remembers to check the search warrant. That hadn’t come in by the time we went to bed … this morning_.

_Check if there’ve been any hits on the BOLOs and any results from the TECS stops._

_Think those are coming to me, not Kenny … I think._

_Did we …_

“You sleep okay, Kat?” Kenny asked once Kateri was on her feet and grabbed her jacket off the floor, “You seemed a bit restless.”

“Oui, merci,”[1] Kateri replied, “Mon cerveau wouldn’t shut up and let me sleep.” _Where’d I leave my phones? Oh, they’re still by my laptop_. She shifted back a step to let Hana pass down the aisle.

It took Kateri a split second to realize that Kenny was giving her a funny look, more in amusement than anything else. _Okay, what just happened?_ She rewound through what she’d just said and then she realized it.

 _Oh, bloody h**l, I did it again_.

Having grown up speaking French and Mohawk originally and only learning English years later, Kateri was known to … very occasionally … if extremely distracted or when jolted from her thoughts … respond to an English query in French, instead of English. At this point in her life she spoke Mohawk with Clinton more often than she ever spoke French with anybody, but for some reason, she rarely accidently codeswitched into Mohawk even when she was talking in English with her partner. French, however … Kateri would respond in it occasionally without ever realizing she’d switched languages … until people started giving her funny looks, and after having a whole long conversation in French, the previous day, French was still kinda on her brain.

 _One downside of being fluently multi-lingual_.

 _Kenny usually thinks it’s funny … Ooh_.

An impish grin replaced Kateri’s original oh-botheration grimace, “Pardon.”[2]

 _Close enough to English even with the accent, he should know what I’m saying, or this joke’ll fall flat_.

_Please don’t let it fall flat._

_Sometimes we need a moment of lightness in the midst of the unpleasantness._

There was a momentary look of confusion in Kenny’s eyes as his brain parsed what she said, and then fond amusement replaced it. As she had expected, he did not fail to react to her joke either. “No, you’re not,” he gripped good-naturedly, playfully lunging for her, “You did that on purpose.”

Kateri danced back out of the way of the telegraphed lunged, dodging so that Kenny’s grabbing hands closed on air. With a laugh and an impish smirk, she went up the aisle back to her seat where her laptop and things were.

 _You’re so much fun to tease_.

* * *

The search warrant for Jerri Eaton’s apartment had come in overnight, so once breakfast had been consumed and copious amounts of coffee made for the road, the team set out for Cranston, Rhode Island. Cranston was a large city on the outskirts of Providence (home of several universities and a lot of old buildings) two hours up the Atlantic coast from Bridgeport.

There was no work currently for Kateri to do in the car. With her partner driving … _because he usually just ends up driving regardless even if I say I don’t mind driving …_ she dozed off for most of the trip, only realizing that she had actually fallen asleep when Clinton gently shook her awake as they approached Cranston. _Bloody h**l. Car trips make me sleepy so often if I don’t have something else to do. And it’s too bloody early_.

Compared to the times Kateri actually got up on her days off, it wasn’t actually that bloody early, but …

 _I just usually go to bed earlier than whatever hour of the morning it actually was_.

“Sorry,” said Kateri, straightening up in her seat and muffling a yawn behind one hand. _Drink your coffee if it isn’t cold by now_ , “Didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“Don’t worry about it. You were crashing hard this morning. You needed to rest,” Clinton replied, glancing over at her for a moment, an assessing look in his dark eyes, “We’re almost to Cranston.” His eyes flicked down to his phone with maps running, balanced on the dashboard. _Google Maps is a wonderful invention_. “Should be at Jeri’s place in another ten or fifteen minutes.”

“Sounds good,” Kateri muffled another yawn behind her hand, “Oh, bloody h**l.” She reached for her mug and took a big sip of coffee. _Eh … lukewarm. Not cold, at least_.

Cold coffee was terrible.

Jerri Eaton lived on the third floor of an older apartment building in a nice neighborhood in Cranston that vaguely reminded Kateri of her own neighborhood of Belmont back in the Bronx. The apartment complex itself was nicer—lots of brick, lots of nice greenery … _winter plants that are less likely to die in the depth of winter …_ and well-trimmed grass … _brown as it is_ —and had better views, _and no gang thugs hanging around that I can see. No Crew like near my place_.

Kenny was in the midst of working on something so he stayed with the cars, but the rest of the team headed inside to search Jerri’s apartment. The local cops had been sitting on the apartment complex ever since the team had discover her connection to Blake Wilson, and no sign had been seen of her so far, and according to the cops, Eaton wasn’t home currently. Jess, Barnes, and Hana headed straight upstairs to the apartment, while Clinton and Kateri split off to find and then speak with the super.

_Hopefully nicer than mine, who seems to be perpetually grumpy._

_Though … given a few of the other tenants in my building, not sure I can blame him._

_Walls and ceilings in apartments should not be as thin as they are … for a bloody lot of reasons … not all X-rated_.

It was past ten in the morning when the team reached Cranston, and the building super was already in his office by the time Kateri and Clinton tracked down its location with the help of a couple of amiable tenants. The super was a pleasant-looking older Hispanic man whose eyes went round as saucers when the two flashed their badges.

_Not often you get visits from the FBI._

_Not an experience you want to repeat._

“Kateri Wood, Clinton Skye, we’re with the FBI,” Clinton introduced them both, “We’d like to talk to you about one of your tenants, Jeri Eaton.”

Kateri was content to stand back and let her partner talk, which allowed her to watch the super with shrewd eyes and study his reactions. It was a method that the two carried out regularly and that had worked out to great effect before.

The super’s eyes went even wider, _if that’s actually possible_ , but the shock on his face was quickly changing to stark puzzlement. “Jeri?” He confirmed. His accent was vaguely familiar, sounding similar to some of the accents Kateri heard in the Bronx among her contacts, “Why she’s one of my best tenants. Has something happened to her?”

 _She’s gotten mixed up in the wrong crowd, that’s what happened_.

“We believe that she’s aiding two fugitives on the Most Wanted List,” Clinton answered, “When was the last time you saw her?”

_If his eyes get any wider, I think they might pop out of his head._

_He’s starting to look like that horrified, wide-eyed emoji on my phone._

“A week ago, when she paid her rent,” the super replied, “She’s one of my best tenants. Quiet, well-mannered. A nice young-lady. She always pays her rent on time and in cash.”

_In cash?_

That caught Kateri’s attention. _Very interesting, and a little unusual, and potentially risky._ Clinton turned to look at Kateri, who met his eyes and made a that’s-very-interesting face. He turned back to the super, “Thank you. That’s very helpful.”

The two left the super’s office and headed back deeper into the apartment complex to meet the others. The elevator was out of service— _looks a little old and rickety anyway. Being caught in a dead elevator is not an experience I want more than once in a lifetime either_ —so Clinton and Kateri jogged up the stairs to the third floor. Jess, Barnes, and Hana were still in Jeri’s apartment as the two entered.

“But she’s been Blake’s exclusive penpal for the last year,” Barnes was saying to what seemed the room at large as Clinton and Kateri entered.

_She’s wasn’t before last year?_

“Super says he hasn’t seen Jeri in a week,” Clinton said, heading over toward Jess, who was standing by Jeri’s desk, which was covered in neat stacks of papers, binders, and books, “She’s a good tenet. Pays her rent on time and in cash.”

Kateri paused in the doorway for a moment, looking around and studying the apartment.

_Lots of white, gauzy curtains—no thanks._

_Outdoorsy motifs on the chairs and walls._

_Is that a fish sculpture on the bookcase?_

_Pretty small place, but not too bad._

_Everything looks in good condition and well-maintained_.

_Is that a fake penguin or a birdy on that beaded-string hanging off the bookcase?_

_Weird whatever it is_.

Jess turned away from the desk and held up a piece of paper with some kind of drawing on it for Clinton’s perusal. For lack of anything else to do … whatever there was to be examined, the others who had gotten there first probably had done it already … Kateri wandered over to see what it was. The drawing was of a lake scene. A dock with a boat moored to it was on one edge of the paper, and front and center was a smiling man holding a fish.

“Nice catch!” Clinton noted in approval, “Walleye. Good fifteen-pounder. I’d be cheesy, too.”

Kateri studied the picture again, wondering how exactly her partner knew what type of fish the fish in the picture actually was. _Save for a few funky looking ones, a fish looks like a fish looks like a fish by and large to me. Goldfish being an exception. And catfish. Kinda hard to miss those whiskers_. _And salmon ... so orangey-ish._

“A crook with a heart of gold,” Jess replied. _Oh, that must be Blake then. Duh. You need more coffee. The boss did say the other night that he liked fishing right up there with adultery and robbery, or so the wife said_. “She and Blake must have had a little honeymoon right before the New Haven bank job. They even took Junior along.”

Other hand-drawn pictures adorned the wall behind Jeri’s desk, including one of the older man—Blake—standing next to a younger man— _Stevie then_ —sitting next to a campfire. _Everyone looks different in drawings than real life, it seems_.

“Maybe the next honeymoon’s in Canada,” Clinton commented dryly, scanning the pictures.

_Plenty of water crossings they could slip across if they can’t get through or don’t want to risk the regular checkpoints._

_Blake’s not stupid. He’s gotta know by now we’re hunting him_.

“Well, they need money for that,” Jess replied.

Kateri rocked on her heels idly and stuffed her hands into her pockets, “Only if you need documents for the regular crossings.” She paused, made a face, and then corrected herself, “They’d need the most money for new documents for the legal checkpoints, but there are plenty of illegal crossings especially in this part of the country,”— _used a few of ‘em during my Organized Crime days_ —“Still wouldn’t be cheap, but you’d need less money to get a guide and even a boat and a ride across at night. Probably’d take less time, too, I’d think.”

 _Though now is not the best time for illegal crossings, not with the supermoon yesterday_.

_And it being January. Be a pretty cold ride._

Jess turned back toward Kateri, “Do you know any common illegal crossings they might be able to use?”

Kateri nodded, “Several water crossings in New York. Land ones, too. I made some suggestions to the appropriate parties when Kenny and I were making calls yesterday.”

 _Suggestions for both water and land crossings_.

_Advantages and disadvantages to both._

“Okay. Good,” Jess replied, “Their original plan was to use forged IDs to get across the border so we need to follow up with both possibilities.” He turned back to Clinton, “You said she paid her rent in cash. They’ve gonna have to find that cash somewhere.”

 _And quickly, too, with us on their tail_.

Barnes had a potential answer to that problem. “There’s this!” She declared, gesturing with the sheet of paper in her left hand. _What did you find?_

“Here’s a shot of you and Bill, I thought you’d enjoy,” Barnes read off, “By the way these are the November dates I need bartenders for. I can do 500 cash each if you commit to all.”

Clinton reached out and took the picture from Barnes’ hand, tilted it so Kateri could see— _older man in a fancy suit, Jeri, some fancy-looking bar_ —and then passed it over to Jess.

 _Bloody h**l, that’s a lot of cash to be forking out_.

“Letter head says Marley York Catering,” Barnes finished.

Jess took the picture and studied it, “Caterer with a bunch of cash on hand …” _I’ve got a very bad feeling_. “A prime target for Blake. Kat, get that address down to Kenny.”

Kateri nodded, took the letter Barnes extended, and hurried off. It took her a couple of minutes longer to get outside than it had coming inside— _if we’d gone straight upstairs_ —because she took one left when she should have gone right and, thus, emerged into a different section of the parking lot.

 _I zigged when I shoulda zagged._ She grumbled to herself, looking around and trying to get her bearings. _Oh, wait. I recognize that building across the street from when we came in. Definitely not where I should be._ Now she knew where she was. Breaking into a jog now that she was on flat ground and there weren’t people to dodge— _only so fast you can go on stairs, ‘specially up ‘em_ —Kateri jogged through the parking lot and, after going around another corner, saw the SUVs a stone’s throw away.

The temperature had risen slightly through the morning, but it was still quite frigid outside, and the cold urged on Kateri’s steps as much as haste regarding the case. _Bloody h**l, it’s cold._ The wind was blowing straight in her face. Her eyes watered, and the cold nipped at her face and irritated her throat as she ran. _Not a pleasant day for field work_.

Kenny saw her approach and unlocked the car doors for her. “What’s up?” He asked, as she slid into the passenger seat across from him, shivering, her teeth chattering with cold, “Find anything useful upstairs.”

Kateri nodded. She passed over the folded sheet of paper with the letterhead on it. “We think we know where they might be getting their cash from. Caterer Jeri’s worked for. Boss wants you to look it up.” She started to rub her hands together vigorously and then blow on them.

“Got it,” Kenny replied and bent to his work.

Several minutes and lots of clacking keys later, his face fell, and Kateri’s heart with it.

She knew that face.

_We’re too late._

_Blake et al got their first._

_Bloody h**l!_

“Cops just got called to the scene …”

* * *

Marley York Catering was located in Fall River, Massachusetts, half-an-hour west of Cranston on the other side of Narragansett Bay. What was found at the catering place was a crime scene that looked almost straight out of a particularly gory crime film movie. Blake and company had gotten there first, and the first things the team saw as they entered the building and stepped into the industrial kitchen were the bodies lying on the floor, struck down in the midst of their attempted flights to safety.

Blood pools were everywhere.

_Bloody h**l._

_Blake, what’d they do to you?_

_No visible weapons_.

_Did they even fight back?_

“Got one bullet to the shoulder, another to the back of the head,” Kenny noted, crouching by the body of a female victim, who was lying between two rows of metal tables near an emergency exit.

_So close. You were so close to the door._

“Multiple gunshots wounds across the back. Both shot from behind probably while making a play for the door,” Clinton continued. He and Kateri were crouched by the body of another victim, a male, also dressed in a cook’s outfit, who was lying in a massive pool of blood a little closer to the door than his female companion. His body was riddled with bullet wounds.

_Four shots._

_Four bloody shots._

_Four._

_Why????_

_This is overkill._

_I can understand the two shots to the other. Hyped on adrenaline, you can miss a kill shot the first time. Then you get the head shot as the kill shot._

_But four shots? The more shots, the more chance of being heard and of someone calling the cops._

_Even if no one’s around to hear, why shoot someone four times? It’s overkill._

“There’s blood around her lips,” Kenny added, continuing his examination of the first victim, “No visible wound. Maybe she bit one of ‘em?” He posited.

_You go girl!_

_If you’re going out, go out fighting_.

“Good for her,” Hana replied dryly, “Hopefully she gave one of ‘em tetanus.”

Hana headed off up another hallway to keep looking around the facility. Barnes followed, and Jess turned to follow.

“Hey, boss,” Kateri called, pushing herself up and out of her crouch, trying not to get blood all over her boots as she did so, “Something about this doesn’t sit right. Four shots,” she gestured down at the body, _God rest his soul_ , “Four bloody shots. Overkill for a kill box like this. I would have thought someone like Blake would have known better.”

_The more shots fired, the more attention you risk drawing._

_When you’re on the run from everybody, attention is the last thing you want_.

_Unless four shots says more about his mental state … or problems therewith …_

Jess nodded, “Blake’s losing control, and Stevie’s in over his head.”

_Being on the run … you’re afraid, a little panicked … you do crazy stuff … crazier than normal stuff._

_Stuff that’s crazy even if you’re a felon with no moral compass_.

_But still … I don’t know. Still doesn’t sit right._

One hallway over and within sight of the kitchen due to a large bank of windows, Hana and Barnes had found the office/store room and dressing room of the late Chef York, the female victim.

“Looks like they found the cash,” Barnes called, her voice carrying over to where the others, except for Jess, still were in the large kitchen.

“And Chef York’s wardrobe,” Hana echoed, “Jeri helped herself to a few dresses.”

_Logical._

_Extra clothes, ‘specially stuff you don’t usually wear and wouldn’t be in pictures of you, can be helpful for avoiding the law._

_Not sure I’d credit her with that line of reasoning, but who knows?_

“And snagged a few bottles of champagne on the way out,” Barnes continued, “Blood on the box. Could be the same person that got bit by the chef.”

Kateri’s eyebrows started trying to crawl their way into her hairline again. _I know Blake likes philandering, but seriously?_ “Are they trying to escape the law or have a party?” She muttered under her breath.

_If we didn’t know who we were dealing with, that blood could be helpful for DNA._

Kenny, who was standing within arm’s length, snorted wryly.

“Blake is losing his grip,” noted Jess with concern. He was standing in the open doorway by the room in which the safe and the alcohol had been stored. _Who puts those two in the same room anyway? Seriously!_ “Killing anyone who gets in his way.”

“Stevie thought life with his dad was all fun and games,” murmured Barnes, “He’s gotten his eyes opened.”

Everyone reformed in the kitchen/staging area. _Miracle more people aren’t dead!_ Only two people had been killed by Blake: the chef and her assistant. Given the half-finished trays of food on nearby counters and the pans of food probably ready for or recently removed from the ovens and the bowls of half-mixed stuff on the counters, it was evident that they had been in the middle of prepping a decently-sized order. _If she’d had more workers in, death-toll would be worse_.

_But why kill ‘em? Doesn’t look like they put up a fight._

_Could just subdue ‘em, take what you want, and beat it._

_Lotta people will cave with a gun in their face._

“He’ll make excuses for his dad,” Jess remarked, a weight of past knowledge tinging his words, a tone that sounded sadly familiar to Kateri, “I did.”

_I wasn’t the only one who grew up with family troubles and parent issues._

_And yep, that sounds familiar._

Over the years Jess had made occasional comments about his living situation growing up and his dead-beat Dad with a gambling problem … _when somehow, it’s relevant to the case_.

_What’s the connection here?_

_You’re a lot better parent than your father was._

“First time my dad took me to the Saratoga Race Track,” Jess began, starting to walk down between one set of tables and a row of large vat-like cooking things and what Kateri thought might be an oven, “I was fourteen. By the fourth race he was completely broke,”— _bloody h**l, one reason it’s better to avoid gambling all together. You can make it big. You’re much more likely to lose it all. Better to not get started_ —“I had twenty bucks in my pocket from my paper route. That went, and on the way home, I felt good about things. I told myself: My dad just showed me how important I was to him by borrowing money from me.”

_You try to normalize your parents’/foster-parents’ behavior._

_Even when what they’re doing is crazy._

_I know how it goes._

ERT had arrived by that point and was starting to set up their equipment to examine the scene.

“We found Chef York’s cellphone on the floor of the closet,” Hana announced, returning with Kenny from the aforementioned closet. _Didn’t even realize you’d left_.

“Last outgoing phone call was at 9:16 this morning to Boon Pharmacy in Cranston, Rhode Island,” Kenny continued.

 _Interesting_.

“Jeri’s home turf,” Clinton noted.

_Guess back to Rhode Island, it is._

_Three states in one day, and it’s only lunch time_.

* * *

Boon Pharmacy was a small local pharmacy located next to a pizza shop on an old, sleepy street in Cranston. With the older shop front and the quiet street, _I could almost swear I was back in Belmont_. It was 1pm by the time Kateri and Clinton returned to Cranston, but even with lunch customers at nearby shops, it was still quiet.

_Lunch … which we haven’t had with all this driving about hither and thither._

_Hopefully soon. Or I might be asking to filch off Kenny’s store of granola bars in his backpack_.

It took only minutes to discover the information they had come looking for. One of the workers had gotten a call early that morning and had promptly gone home sick, the manager informed Clinton and Kateri. It was only noticed some time later that she’d taken first aid supplies with her, too.

_Enough to treat a bite, one wonders?_

_Interesting_.

Clinton called Jess as the two headed back outside. “Yeah, Bethany Hogan. Works in the pharmacy. She went home sick three hours ago. Took a first-aid kit and some pain meds with her.”

_So what’s Hogan’s involvement in all this … besides medical care?_

_Who knows her? Jeri, probably._

_How do they know each other?_

_Why is Hogan getting herself mixed up in all this?_

_Better question may be, does she even know what she’s getting herself mixed up in? Did Jeri tell her?_

The six agents reformed in Providence, the nearby central location to which the bus had been moved, and found a diner at which to get a very late lunch. It was another working meal, but that was old hat by now to the team. Plate readers needed to be set up on all routes into and out of Providence, especially focusing on Routes 6, 44, 146, since Blake was smart enough to stay off interstates.

_Stay off the major thoroughfares to draw less attention._

_Okay, Routes 6, 44, 146, w_ here do those go?

Kateri pulled out her tablet from her backpack and, with a few taps, opened Google Maps, _the wonderful invention that it is_.

 _Okay, Route 6 heads west toward Hartford, Connecticut … and …_ Kateri swiped right and right and right on the map … _You’ll eventually get to Erie. Possible crossing point. Not ideal, though_.

_Route 44 … goes more north before it goes west. That’ll eventually dump you off in Poughkeepsie. Could split off from there. Plenty of roads to choose from._

_Route 146 heads north. Shorter route to Canada if you head north, not west_.

_Now to find them … before the death toll gets any higher!_

* * *

The afternoon passed quickly despite all the work had to be done. The tips that were coming in had to be checked out, and any potentially helpful ones had to be weeded out from all the schlock. The plate readers were set up. There was liaisoning … _is that even a word?_ … to do and bureaucrats to deal with. _New Haven wants its fugitives back to deal with_. Kenny and Hana did more digging into Jeri and into Bethany, the new player on the field. ERT’s report had to be dealt with, too, and gone over in detail … _in case they found anything helpful or noticed things we missed_. The afternoon was horrifically busy, but by the team gathered in yet another Providence diner for dinner, a lot of progress had been made.

“Roughly same age, same education,” Hana related, summarizing her work digging into Bethany Hogan and her connection to Jeri, “Two years at UMass for Bethany, two at Tufts for Jeri.” _And the two aren’t exactly close together_. “But their paths do cross on Facebook Messenger where they dish about their shared passion, ‘Love on the Inside,’ an online community, who date the incarcerated.”

_I still don’t get it._

_The more I think about it, the less I get it_. Kateri shook her head and turned her attention back to her hamburger and fries.

_Talk about bad taste in men …_

“All right,” Kenny declared, his tone genuinely puzzled, setting his milkshake back down on the table, “dating a convict, I don’t get it.”

 _Glad to know someone else doesn’t_.

“You always know where your man is,” Barnes answered, “that he’s not up to something with your BFF.”

“Amen to that,” Hana agreed.

 _Point taken, but …_ Kateri’s face twisted into a grimace, and she took another bite of her hamburger, _That’s a problem better solved by choosing your friends and your boyfriend more carefully_.

_Yea, he’s not up to mischief, but that’s because he’s locked up in prison for who knows what._

_You don’t know who the h**l you’ve ended up with, do you?_

“It’s safe,” Jess added, “No physical contact, no intimacy. You think you matter in that convict’s life.”

 _Considering who you might end up ‘dating,’ that might not be a good thing_.

“Like a sheep matters to a wolf,” Clinton countered, spearing another forkful of salmon off his plate, “Convicts have written textbooks on how to work your prison bride.”

 _Makes me yet happier I’m single_.

“So Bethany gets invited to keep Stevie company while Dad and Jeri do their thing?” said Barnes.

“They got girls. They got champagne. All Blake needs now is a place to cast a line,” Jess settled back down in his chair.

_Are they trying to wait to get across the border until the heat dies down a bit?_

_If so, they’re not helping themselves drawing attention like they are_.

Kenny was intently studying his laptop, which he had pulled up once he finished eating. “Last ping on Bethany’s GPS is 20 miles east of Providence. It’s right over the Massachusetts state line.”

“Long Pond Lake’s nearby. It’s known for its walleye,” Clinton noted.

_Partner, how the h**l do you know these things?_

“Fishing camps, lake resorts,” Jess glanced over at Kenny.

“On it.”

_Might as well make the work go faster …_

Kateri had finished eating by that point, and she wiped her fingers quickly on a napkin and looked around for her bag. _Oh, yea, duh, right by my feet. Easiest place to lose something is right in front of your nose_. “I’ll do one, Kenny. You do the others. We’ll get this done faster.”

“Thanks.”

_Because I have a feeling this’ll be a long night anyway._

_Got to find them before more people day._

_Or Blake goes even more off the rails!_

* * *

[1] French: “Yes, thank you. My brain"

[2] French: “Sorry.”


	3. Wednesday-Thursday, January 23-24: Day 3-4

By the time Wednesday morning dawned, a hit had come in on the feelers that Kateri and Kenny had put out to any and all nearby fishing camps and lake resorts within one hundred miles of Cranston, Rhode Island. Clinton’s comment about Long Pond Lake and its walleye had proved prophetic, and the tip came in from the overseer of the fishing camps there, one of whose workers recognized Jerri’s picture.

_Success!_

_She’s less likely to draw attention than the Wilsons, whose pics are everywhere._

_Well, considering that she’s rather pretty, she’d draw some looks, but not for the reasons the Wilsons will._

Long Pond Lake was located near Lakeville, Massachusetts, about forty minutes from Cranston. Though the nearer edge of Long Pond Lake and Cranston were only about twenty-five miles apart as the crow flies, there were no fast, direct route from Point A to Point B. The fastest routes that utilized the interstates either went all the way north to Mansfield before turning south or all the way to Fall River on Taunton River before heading back north. _Two sides of a quadrilateral almost, instead of a straight line_. The shortest route from Point A to Point B went through Taunton via Route 44 and was thus slower.

_And we need speed if we’re going to catch up with the Wilsons_.

The tip, address and all, came in at 7am, and by 7:45, the team was heading out toward Long Pond Lake. A SWAT team at the Boston Field Office had been put on high alert the night before, and it would take them about the same amount of time to get to Long Pond Lake from Boston as it would the team from Cranston.

_Please let this work._

_Blake’s going off the rails._

_Would he turn on Jeri? His son?_

* * *

Snow and dry leaves crunched beneath Kateri’s boots as the agents approached the small red cabin set on a small rise above Long Pond Lake. (A quick flick of her eyes had revealed a couple of small boats pulled up on the shore and a nearby dock surrounded by ice. January had been cold for a while, and the weather was only promising that it would get colder still.) The inside of the cabin was dark, no lights visible, and all was quiet save for the wind in the trees and the crunch of boots. The agents had faced no opposition yet, but that did not guarantee the Wilsons were not holed up inside.

_Wait until we’re close and then open fire._

_Risky strategy, but can be effective_.

_Might get yourself still killed in the end, but more than a few cops have been taken out by strategies like that._

As quietly as possible, the agents surrounded the house, and a SWAT officer standing at the bottom of the steps that led to the covered porch and the front door yelled a warning, “Flash in.”

Glass shattered as his throw connected.

A second later there was an explosion of light and noise as the flashbang[1] went off. A second later, the breachers breached through the doors, and SWAT poured into the cabin.

The cabin was small with only a handful of other rooms and no other floors, and it took less than a minute to clear. No one was there. Blake, Stevie, Jeri, and Bethany were all gone.

_Bloody h**l_.

Kateri reholstered her Glock as her partner pulled off a glove and carefully pressed one hand to the top of the wood stove. _Don’t burn yourself, partner!!_

“Still warm,” Clinton noted, “Didn’t miss him by much.”

_Bloody h**l_.

Jess, who with Barnes were the only other team members to breach the cabin, was standing on the other side of the stove from Clinton, his face toward the porch and the lake beyond. Suddenly, his gaze sharpened, fixed on something behind Kateri, and he stepped out onto the porch, staring intently at the lake. Exchanging puzzled glances, Kateri and Clinton turned to follow.

_What are you seeing, boss?_

_Wouldn’t get far with the ice, and boats are still on the shore_.

_No broken ice trail as if there had been ‘nother boat, either._

Kenny, who had remained outside with Hana, was approaching the steps that lead up to the cabin as the others stepped out onto the porch. His phone was pressed to his ear, and his voice drifted on the clear morning air. “This is Agent Crosby. You did? Okay. Where at? Yeah, all right. Thanks.”

_Someone found something_.

Kateri kept one hand on the railing as she followed Jess down the steps from the porch. It had snowed overnight, and the steps were slippery, and with the deep chill in the air, the sun had not been enough to melt the snow yet, and the steps were slippery.

_And I don’t want to slip because (A) that would be horrifically embarrassing and (B) my luck some days, I’d boll Jess over and break something in the process_.

“They found Bethany’s Prius about a quarter mile down the road hidden in the woods,” Kenny announced.

“Ditched her car and took Jeri’s?” Kateri guessed, “Funny, I’d have done the reverse.”

The six agents moved downhill toward the lake, Kateri and Clinton at the rear of the group. She glanced around as they walked, half-watching where she placed her feet and half-periodically updating her mental map of the area with everyone’s changing positions.

_SWAT’s reforming by the house._

_Called them out early for nothing_.

“The ice on the lake—it’s broken up near the dock,” Jess noted as they left the cabin, identifying what had drawn his attention a minute before. When they got closer to the dock, he added, “We got a body.”

_Bloody h**l_.

_Didn’t even notice the broken ice by the dock._

_Hard to see from this angle without the high ground of the cabin._

_Bloody h**l._

_One more bloody victim!_

_D**n!_

Clinton and Kenny bolted forward, quick strides taking them the last few yards to the dock and then down the wooden planks to the place Jess had identified. Stripping off their gloves, the two strongest members of the team dropped to their knees and fished around in the water until they could get a firm grip on the icy-cold and slippery clothing of the body floating face down in the water. Once they had a good grip, they bodily draged the water-logged corpse onto the dock, streaming water everywhere.

It was a woman’s body.

_Jeri or Bethany?_

“Bethany Hogan,” Jess stated.

When they rolled her over, the young woman’s face was placid in death, eyes closed, face peaceful, strands of wet hair clinging to her face. A thin layer of ice crystals covered her body, making dots of light reflect off her face, but her clothes were intact, and there were no obvious signs of trauma that Kateri could see. No gaping wounds. No bloody patches on her clothing. _I hope it was quick for her sake_.

Hana pulled out her cellphone and punched in a number, stepping away to make the call. “We’ve got a DB in the water by the dock.”

Kateri edged around Jess to get a closer look at Bethany’s body and then crouched by the edge of the dock, steadying herself with one gloved hand on the wood— _don’t fall and give them something else to fish out_ —as Clinton pulled the other end of the rope, which had been tied around the body, out of the water. Underneath the hole, multiple anchors and what looked to be several oars were lying at the bottom of the lake.

_Weights for the body_.

_Don’t want anybody finding the body for a while._

“Used anchors down there,” Jess commented, a thread of something unidentifiable for the moment lurking in his voice, as he looked over Kateri’s shoulder down into the water. “Probably from those boats over there.”

Kateri glanced back at the rope her partner was holding and then back down into the water and then back at the rope, studying the end which had been tied to the anchors.

_Knot didn’t hold_. She realized with a start. _Knot on the one around the body, those are slipping, too_. _An experienced fisherman, wouldn’t he know more about knots?_

“Tied it around her so she wouldn’t float up,” Jess’ voice dropped in pitch, his tone solemn.

_Poor kid. Still pretty young._

_Got dragged into all this by Jeri, looks like._

_Didn’t deserve an end like this._

_I hope it was quick_.

“Someone didn’t want her found anytime soon,” Barnes concluded.

“That was the intention,” Jess agreed, “The rope slipped, was poorly tied like this one.” _I think I know where your thoughts are heading, boss_. “A life-long fisherman like Blake would never have made this kind of mistake, would he?”

Kateri was not a fisherman, couldn’t ever remember going fishing in her life, couldn’t identify most kinds of fish apart from a store label if they slapped her upside the head, but she did know something about knots. _Knew a few from before, and Clinton drummed a few more into my head_. If you did much in the outdoors regularly, especially with boats, you had to know how to handle a rope and how to make knots that stuck. _Don’t want your boat floating away if you don’t drag it ashore_. If Blake hadn’t been the one, then …

“No, he wouldn’t,” Clinton agreed, gaze fixed out on the lake.

_Bloody h**l_.

_We got this all wrong_.

_All d***n wrong._

“He wouldn’t let anybody else make it either,” Jess added.

“Nope,” Clinton agreed again.

_We got this all wrong_.

_Bloody, bloody h**l._

There was nothing in the profile that would indicate Jeri could or would do something like this, would take out the very same person she had called for help. _Taking out and lugging around a dead woman’s body without the men noticing, without Blake noticing … don’t think that’s going to happen. Jeri’s not that big of a woman from the pics._

The same conclusion was in Jess’ mind. “This wasn’t Blake’s play.”

“So what are we saying?” Asked Kenny.

_If it’s not Blake and it’s not Jeri …_

_Only one left …_ _Stevie_

“What I’m staying is, it was Stevie,” Jess confirmed the conclusion Kateri had fast been coming to. “He killed her. I’ve been looking at this all wrong. D**n it.”

_Bloody h**l_.

_The boy’s the crazy one, and the dad’s the one along for the ride, so to speak._

Kateri chewed on that conclusion as they walked off the dock—others would collect the body and get it to the nearest ME for processing. _Maybe take it to Boston? Not that far_ —running back through the profile in her mind and the other case data looking for red flags.

_When they first escaped, the van … I remember noticing it was odd … the guards were bound and then shot._

_And Chef York’s assistant, it would be unusual to have four shots … if it were someone experienced behind the gun._

_Kid who didn’t know what he was doing … wellllll …._

"Hey, kid," a hand touched her shoulder, breaking her from her thoughts with a jolt. Clinton was trying to get her attention because … _you missed Kenny calling your name_.

“Niawen,” Kateri said softly, shooting her partner a grateful look. “What do you need, Kenny?”

Kenny rubbed his hands together briskly and then breathed on them. “Got any hand warmers into those pockets of yours? That water’s d**n cold.”

_I think sooooo …_

As she stopped walking for a moment, Kateri pulled off one glove and reached down to one of her larger leg pockets, fished around for a second and came up empty. _That’s med supplies. Think I’ve got some somewhere_. She switched which glove was off and fished around in the same pocket on her other leg and … _Success!_ “Catch.”

_Cold enough with dry hands and no gloves!_

Kenny wasn’t that far away and easily caught the tossed package of handwarmers. “Thanks.”

“Sure. Don’t want frost bite,” Kateri glanced over and up at her partner, “They get bloody hot, though. So don’t burn yourself!” _Because between them and the hot water at home, I certainly have_.

(The one annoying thing … _one of the annoying things_ … about going running in most weather for exercise was that when it was cold, especially windy, or especially cold and windy and about doing a number of her errands on foot … _avoids the traffic_ was that sometimes Kateri came home … _rather chilled_ , and her hands sometimes ended up feeling more like ice blocks than flesh appendages. And when you got really cold, normal temperatures just felt off, and she had burned herself more than once trying get warmed up. _Hot water just feels warm …_ _at first_.)

Kenny nodded, “I will.”

Kateri started onwards back towards the car, half-turning toward Clinton, who had paused beside her, as she walked, “You need one? Think I felt an extra. Should have some more in my backpack, regardless.”

Clinton shook his head, gave her a quick smile of thanks, “I’ve got a pair. Thanks, though, kid.”

* * *

The team returned to Cranston, to the bus, and to heat and warmth. Several hours passed. Lunch—pizza, a change from several meals of diner food—came and went. Early in the afternoon, Clinton and Barnes left to make a coffee run and returned with news.

“ME’s preliminary on Bethany—blunt-force trauma to the back of the head, then drowning,” Barnes announced.

Jess, who was sitting by himself at the other end of the bus from the others, bent over papers and case files, said nothing.

_Bloody h**l_.

Kateri had looked up at the sound of the door and her partner’s footsteps but looked back down at her computer after Barnes’ announcement. _Bloody h**l. Poor Bethany. Hopefully she was unconscious before she hit the water_. Kateri surreptitiously rubbed her own throat on reflex. She had been choked once by a suspect who got the best of her on a case during her Organized Crime days— _actually not Thomas’ fault that time_ —and still remembered what suffocating felt like.

Drowning … being tied to an anchor, unable to escape … being able to see safety—the water line and precious air—so close but yet so far … that would be a lot worse.

_Her face was peaceful._

_I think she had to be unconscious._

_I hope so for her sake_.

Clinton’s voice broke the silence of the bus, save for clacking keys, as Barnes began to hand out the coffee and check on what they had found so far, “What’s going on, bro?”

“I let my own history muddy my judgment,” Jess replied with a heavy sigh. His voice was too loud and carried down the bus, making selective hearing an exercise in futility.

_Don’t be too hard on yourself, boss._

_We were right along on the Blake’s-going-nuts train with you_.

_It made perfect sense at first._

“It’s all right here,” Jess continued without pausing, “Two security guards in the van shot point blank. The whole point of firing at close range is a direct shot. These shots were off the mark and indecisive. The shooter hesitated. Whoever grabbed York did not have the muscle or the experience to control her. Ballistics found slugs all over the back wall of the kitchen, all from the same gun.”

_Bloody h**l!_

_Does go along with the overkill on the assistant._

“Panic fire,” Clinton concluded.

“This isn’t the work of a hardened criminal,” Jess noted, “This is Stevie, making a mess.” He turned away from his desk toward Kateri and the others, _which is our clue that this is now a group conversation, not a semi-private one that we can’t that easily ignore_.

Kateri rose, stretching out a kink in her back, grabbed her coffee, and went to stand beside her partner.

“He killed all these people in plain sight of his dad and Jeri.” Jess continued, gesturing to the crime-scene photos spread over the table where he was sitting, “Bethany, he strangled her, drowned her quietly, hid her body at the bottom of a lake, and dumped her car from the cabin.”

_That he didn’t want them to know about._

_Concerned about their reactions?_

“He didn’t want Blake and Jeri to know,” Barnes stated.

_Kid’s on thin ice, I’m guessing._

_He’s making a mess._

_Blake’s experienced._

_Not going to be happy, I’m guessing._

_B_ _illy'd be apoplectic in the same situation. Stevie'd probably also be dead already, too._

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Jess agreed, “It suggests that Blake is not too happy with Stevie’s killing spree. Perhaps there’s tension between the two of them. Maybe something we can exploit.”

“Okay,” Barnes swiveled to look at Kateri and the others, voice switching into XO mode, “Let’s dig into that.”

* * *

The rest of Wednesday was spent chasing down leads of various sorts, following up with hits off the tip line, and talking to Stevie’s mother and brother at length to get any clues about any tension between Blake and Stevie that the team might be able to exploit.

About noon on Thursday, as the team was eating lunch, Kateri’s computer dinged with any incoming notification. Setting down her fries and wiping the grease on her fingers off on a napkin, she scooted her chair back from the table to her desk where her laptop was sitting.

_Now what do we have?_ It seemed like someone’s computer or phone(s) had been making noises all bloody morning with little to show for it.

Not so this time.

It took only seconds of scanning the alert before an instinctive, “Oh, bloody h**l,” slipped from Kateri’s lips.

That got everyone’s attention.

“Problem, Kat?” Jess asked.

Kateri glanced up and over back to the table where she and Clinton had been sitting with Jess and Barnes eating and going over data. She looked back to her computer, summarizing the alert, “Hit off the BOLO on Jeri’s car, boss. Getaway car in a bank robbery in …,” she paused for a second and made a face— _How the h**l do you pronounce this city name?_ —“Re-ho-both, Massachusetts, about twenty minutes ago.”

_So much for getting through lunch before a real hit came_.

_Least we’re mostly done_.

* * *

Rehoboth, Massachusetts, was a very small and very old historic town about twenty-five minutes west of Providence, Rhode Island, where the bus was. The bank itself, which was located on a hillside a few minutes off Route 44, was still swarming with police as the team arrived. Clinton and Kateri walked the perimeter of the bank together—down the slope, around the back, up the hill on the other side, back to the front, looking at exits and angles, and then surveyed the interior of the building quickly before going back upstairs to where Jess and Barnes were talking with witnesses.

“The big one emptied the drawers so fast, I thought maybe he took the bait money,” a middle-aged Black woman was saying as the two partners came off the steps, “He grabbed everything but.”

_Bait money[2] … Blake’s not dumb enough and we’re not lucky enough for that to happen_.

“Is there a back-exit downstairs?” Barnes asked.

“Not an official one,” the bank worker replied, “There’s a way out through the service corridor.”

_The one to the back alley … saw that._

_Saw a security camera, too._

_We’ll need to get that footage_ … _if Kenny hasn’t gone for it already._

“Do you remember anything else about the two men?” Asked Jess.

In the warmth of the interior of the building, Kateri pulled off her gloves and stuffed them in the outside pockets of her parka and unzipped her coat part way. It was good to be inside and warm. It was kinda chilly outside.

“The big one wanted to go, but the skinny one wouldn’t listen. After he shot Ryan, the big one dragged him out.”

_Dragged him out?_ Kateri and Clinton exchanged looks. _Things are going south for those two._

“Physically?” Clinton asked.

The woman nodded. “Pulled him by the collar.” Her face twisted. “The big one was pissed.”

_I bet he was._

_Stevie’s causing no end of trouble._

_Not conducive for a clean, quick getaway to Canada_.

“That’s it for now. Thank you,” Jess gave a nod.

One of the local officers gently escorted the bank worker away, and a few moments later, Kenny came up the stairs. “Bank managers put the take at around 11 grand,” he said, “That’s 30 grand shy of what they need for those passports.”

_If they even make it that far as the border_.

Barnes noted the same thing as everyone stepped back outside, “The family ties are looking thin.”

“Even with his son’s antics,” Jess countered, “Blake is showing himself a total pro, avoiding the bait money, knowing about the exit.”

_Blake, at least, did his homework on this place_.

“Jeri in the getaway car was probably parked around back,” Clinton added.

“Straight shot back to the road,” Kateri picked up her partner’s stream-of-thought where he left off and seamlessly flowed in to finish, “Not far back to Route 44 then, or you could head south down 118, split off onto any number of side-roads, or even try for 195 if they’re feeling pinched.”

_Lots of little roads to get lost in._

_Too many to cover._

_We’d need an army._

_They’ve got a lead on us anyway._

“Any video with a sight line to the back-exit?” Jess asked.

Kateri nodded, “Clinton and I saw a camera.”

Kenny brandished a memory-stick in one gloved hand a second later, “Got it right here.”

_Figured you might._

“Excellent,” Jess declared, “Let’s get a look at her.”

* * *

Kenny had gotten a hold of both the exterior security camera footage, which should have picked up Jeri and the getaway car, and the interior security camera footage, which would show the robbery itself and Blake and Stevie’s actions … _and antics_. Back at the bus, Kenny worked his magic, synced up the timestamps of the exterior and interior footage so that everyone could see what was happening inside and outside simultaneously. When the footage was ready to see, everyone gathered around Kenny’s desk.

On the footage, at the moment that Stevie shot Ryan, the gentleman who had come to the bank teller’s assistance, in the knee … even just watching the shot made Kateri wince in sympathetic pain … Jeri started to high-tail it out of the bank’s back lot but changed her mind within a couple of seconds, reversing back to her previous position. Seconds later, after disappearing down the service corridor inside, Stevie and Blake appeared outside, climbing into the car, which then sped off.

_Interesting._

_Very interesting._

_Jeri started to bolt._

“You got Jeri starting to leave at the same time Stevie shot the employee,” Kenny stated, “so I’m guessing Jeri heard the shot and panicked.”

_Most people would. She’s not the type born to that kind of life_.

_Or hardened into it by too many years in that kind of life_.

“She was gonna run but then changed her mind,” Barnes commented, still standing behind Kenny’s chair staring at the footage even as the others started scattering back to their seats around the bus.

“But her impulse was to run,” Jess noted from the conference table, still covered in papers and the remains of lunch that had been pulled out of the fridge.

“She had enough of the gangster life,” Hana commented.

_Looks like it_. Kateri returned to her seat, edging around Jess to get there, long enough to grab her coffee cup but then returned to her partner’s side. _Right instinct. Might keep her alive if Stevie keeps going further down the nut-parade. Even Blake can’t fully control Stevie._

“Maybe we can get her to run again,” Jess began, picking up the case file and coming back down the bus, “The website she and Bethany were on …”

“Love on the Inside,” Barnes filled in when Jess hesitated.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, does Jeri still log onto that?” Jess asked.

Hana swiveled back around to her desk and starting typing, fingers clacking across the keys. Within a few moments, she had found the answer. “The last time was yesterday. She’s not posting but reading about other ladies and how they’re living it up with their bad boys.”

_I still don’t get it._

_I just don’t get the draw for dating convicts._

_Or just dating the bad-boy type in general_. Kateri shook her head ruefully and took another sip of her coffee. _Blech, this stuff’s getting cold_.

“All right, well,” Jess turned back toward the conference table, pacing back up toward it, “We’re going to assume that she doesn’t know Stevie killed Bethany because Bethany’s about to reach out to Jeri and coax her away from Blake.”

_Oh, brother._

“I’m liking this,” Hana replied, a hint of amusement, leaking into her voice.

“You would,” Kenny snarked back, and Hana craned her head long enough for the two to exchange looks.

_Oh, dear._

_This will be interesting_.

“All right,” Jess put down the case-file and came back down the bus, “Hard sell a story about Blake driving Bethany away.” He said with accompanying hand gestures.

Hana pulled up the private messaging window so that ‘Bethany’ could send Jeri the message and activated the microphone function on the computer. “Hey, Jeri,” Hana began, “Sorry, I cut out on you, but I was forced to by Blake, who…”

_Hopefully, our ‘Bethany’ sounds close enough to the real thing to fool Jeri._

_Or that Jeri’ll just chalk up any differences to a traumatic situation_.

That was the hard thing about impersonating a person to someone who actually knew that person. You had to sound enough like them so not to tip the other person off that something was hinky.

“Forced himself on me,” Barnes took up the sob-story at that point.

Kenny took it up next, gesticulating with the pencil in one hand as he spun out the story, “And that’s why I took off …”

“Fearing for my life and yours,” Barnes continued. The three were good at playing off of each other and creating something coherent even with three masterminds behind it.

_Wonder if they’ve done something like before I came or when I’ve been out._

Hana went next. “I’m ready to go to the police.”

“But I won’t do it unless I know you’re safe,” Barnes took up the next thread.

“I’m here for you, Jeri,” Kenny’s tone was so over-blown that everyone gave him funny looks and Kateri slapped one hand over her mouth to muffle a giggle and snort of laughter.

_Oh, Kenny._

“Just name a place to meet,” Hana finished.

Everyone looked at Clinton and Kateri next, both of whom had been staying out of the story spinning. _Intentionally_. _Very intentionally._

“Works for me,” Clinton said with a shrug.

“What he said,” Kateri agreed. _Leave me out of this._

“Send it,” said Jess, a thread of amusement in his voice. _You’re upholding the dignity of the team, boss?_

Hana pressed send. More amused glances were exchanged after the theatrics of spinning the hard sell for Jeri, and then everyone returned to their respective seats and to their work.

_We’ll see if she buys it_.

Late that night, or it might have been early Friday morning for all Kateri knew— _this late, it’s too depressing to look at my watch_ —everyone was tired, and people started to cut out for the night. Lights were turned down. Hana fell asleep at her desk, head pillowed on her arms. Kenny lay down on the floor out of the walking path for a short nap, while Kateri returned to the small bunks in the back to get some rest until she was needed again. Jess, Clinton, and Barnes remained up to do … something.

It seemed like Kateri had only lain down and been asleep for a few minutes when an incessant sound—a notification alert—broke the silence of the bus, rousing everyone from work or sleep.

“It’s Jeri,” Hana announced a few moments later, as Kateri stepped out from behind the bunk curtain, feet hastily shoved into her unlaced boots, “Bethany, I’ve thought seriously about what you said. I’ll meet you tomorrow at 9:00 behind Garden City Plaza.”

_Bloody h**l, she bought it._

_One more player soon to be out of the game._

* * *

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stun_grenade>

[2] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_money>


	4. Friday, January 25: Day 5

As was becoming typical for this case and was sadly typical for too many cases in general, morning came too early. The sting operation to catch Jeri would take place at nine in Cranston, but there was plenty of work to do in the meantime before the team left the bus in Providence to travel the few miles down to Cranston, Rhode Island. There were always new tips to check, reports from cooperating departments and LEOs as well as ERT to read and reread and … _sometimes reread again_ , profiles to go over and over and over, anything that might give clues to where Blake and Stevie were or where they might go next or what they might do next.

_Especially what Stevie might do next …_

At 8:30am, the team was kitted up and ready to go, and in their two SUVs they left the parking lot of the Providence Police Department where the bus had been parked for days and set out on I-95 south to Cranston. They arrived at Garden City Plaza with time to spare— _no Jeri in sight yet_ —and parked the SUVs, motors idling, a short distance away where they could sit in ambush.

_Don’t want her to see us and get tipped off this is a trap._

At 9am almost on the dot, Jeri’s blue car appeared behind the plaza, and Clinton, who was driving the SUV Kateri and Kenny were in, hit the gas, and the SUVs raced forward. Jeri attempted escape, slamming on her own gas pedal in turn, but before she could get more than about fifteen feet, her way of escape was cut off, and she slammed on the breaks and climbed from her car, standing warily behind the open door.

Kateri climbed down from the passenger side of their SUV and moved carefully around the front to form up beside her partner. One hand rested on her gun, but she didn’t draw … not yet.

_Jeri’s hands are visible._

_Others haven’t drawn._

_Jess’ moving forward to try to talk her down_.

_Wish she’d move out from behind the door._

“Jeri, I’m Agent LaCroix of the FBI,” Jess said as an opening, “I’d like you to come with us, please.”

Jeri closed the car door with a slam, her eyes flicking almost frantically from person to person. _She’s gonna rabbit!_ Kateri’s instinct was correct, and a split-second later, Jeri turned, short hair swirling around her in a cloud in the morning breeze, and started to run.

_Bloody h**l_.

Even before the thought has fully flown through Kateri’s mind, instinct already had the female agent bolting forward in hot-pursuit, Kenny a couple of paces ahead. Jeri was fast, but not fast enough, and before she had gotten more than about twenty feet away across the grass, Kenny caught up, spun her around with a lunge at one arm, and grabbed hold of both her arms. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”

“Let me go!” Jeri almost-howled, struggling in Kenny’s grip, “Bethany, that bitch lied to me. Let me go!”

_Considering this attitude, you weren’t exactly honest in your message this morning, either._

_Reconsidering, I don’t think so_.

_Bloody h**l!!_

“Got her?” Kateri asked, stutter-stepping backwards hastily so not to get accidentally hit by Jeri’s flailing feet. When Kenny nodded, she released her grip on her gun and added to Jeri in a very pointed tone, “Settle down. We’re not here to hurt you.”

_Bloody h**l._

_Are you high-strung or on something?_

“Come take a look!”

Barnes’ shout overshadowed Jeri’s continued mutterings and protests, and Kateri turned away back toward the car, only after double-checking that Kenny still had Blake and Stevie’s struggling accomplice well in hand.

_Don’t ever turn your back to a potential threat, ‘specially to a firebrand like her._

_Don’t know what’s under that puffy coat ‘till we search her_. Heading back toward the car, Kateri automatically scanned for a threat, wondering and looking for what had caused Barnes’ shout and _that_ tone in her voice.

Barnes, Jess, and Clinton were all gathered around Jeri’s blue sedan, and Kateri moved to join them, long strides carrying her back across the grass to the curb where the car was parked. As soon as she got close enough to see the contents of the backseat, Kateri immediately understood.

_Bloody h**l, and God have mercy_.

She felt her stomach flip and swallowed hard.

“We’ve got a tarp, hacksaw, garbage bags,” Clinton announced.

_Bloody, bloody h**l_.

Kateri had been a cop long enough and worked with and around gangs long enough to know in gory detail how those tools would be use. Body parts were easier to hide and dispose of than an entire body.

“And in the glove compartment,” Barnes echoed a moment later, emerging with a wickedly sharp-looking kitchen knife, “Jeri had a going-away present planned for Bethany.”

_Bloody h**l!_

_Bloody, bloody h**l._

Kateri ran back through the profiles in her mind, reviewing what they knew about Jeri and her background. _Tarp, hacksaw, garbage bags … knife._ It was an interesting choice of murder weapons and disposal methods … especially for a woman of Jeri’s size and background.

_Kitchen knife like that’s not made for quick, clean kills._

_Jeri’s not big enough or strong enough to get a jump on someone Bethany’s size and cut their throat._

_Go for a different kill shot, Bethany’d probably have time to scream, and this place isn’t that isolated._

_Gun, ‘specially one with a silencer, and a better choice of locale would be a better idea._

_Hacksaw … dismemberment … Jeri, do you have any conception of how utterly horrific … and bloody … that disposal method’ll be? Seeing body parts found during investigations is bad enough, but to be the one doing it …_ Kateri’s stomach gave another lurch just at the mere thought.

_No wonder she ran_.

Jeri had settled down … mostly … by that point, and Kenny led her away, back toward the cars. Jess surveyed the scene one more time, attention focused on the knife et al. Finally, he looked over at Kateri, “Call ERT. Get them down here.”

“Yeaa, boss,” Kateri nodded and stepped away to make the call.

_Bloody h**l._

* * *

The team returned to Providence, Rhode Island, and to the police department there. Jess and Barnes went in with Jeri to question her, while the others returned to the bus. By the time they returned to the bus, ERT had brought over a couple of interesting things from the car along with a preliminary report of their findings.

Jeri, at first, claimed that it was Stevie who had told her to kill Bethany in order to “shut her up.” She also claimed that she would not have gone through with the murder and dismemberment in the end but had only done what she had because she (and Blake) were scared of Stevie.

_Blake’s scared of Stevie? Really?_

_Stevie’s off the rails, but the way Blake was manhandling him and yelling at him during the Rehoboth job doesn’t give the indication of a man scarred of his son_.

_Pi**ed off, sure, but scared?_

“She did, however, seemed honestly surprised when we showed her a photo of Bethany after we pulled her body from the lake,” Barnes added.

_Some looks of shock you just can’t fake that well_.

Factoring in the video evidence of Jeri’s near-flight during the Rehoboth job, the truth was a little bit different than Jeri was claiming. Jeri resented Bethany for threatening the fantasy life she had created around Blake and, thus, wanted to take her out _before that fantasy collapses like a house of cards_.

“Once we made it clear that she was an accomplice to the murder whether she had gone along with it or not,” Jess put in at that point, “she caved.”

_Felony murder is a thing_.

Blake and Stevie had gotten the information necessary for the Rehoboth bank job from a man in New Haven, who owed Blake one hundred thousand dollars. _Bloody h**l, that’s a lot of money._ What the man’s address was, Jeri did not know, because Blake had been driving, but she had provided a basic description of the house (blue door _… that’ll narrow things down a wee bit … an iota_ ) and the man (black, hefty, hearing aid in his left ear … _least the latter will help the narrowing more_ ). Since the two had robbed the bank the next day, it was clear, Jeri had noted, that they had not gotten the money from the informant.

The last piece of information Jeri had provided was the most interesting: Blake was paying a group of people he called the ‘Albanians’ sixty grand for passports.

_Which’s only enough for two passports … not three, I’d think …_

_Stevie boy getting left out in the cold?_

The discussion of passports brought the conversation full circle and linked in nicely to what ERT had only recently brought. Kateri scooted her chair away from the conference table to reach over and grab an evidence bag which contained the contents of Jeri’s purse, including two passport photos, which helped confirm Jeri’s statements about the money.

“ERT found these two photos in Jeri’s purse,” Kateri noted, returning to the table and retrieving the two small photos from the bag and laying them out on the table. One photo was of a clean-shaven Blake, the other of Jeri with short, bottle-blond hair. “For the passports from the Albanians.”

“Looks like Stevie is the odd man out,” added Kenny, who was standing next to Kateri.

“Blake’s cutting him loose,” Barnes stated the obvious conclusion. She was sitting on the opposite side of the table next to Clinton.

_Not surprising for a hardened criminal like Blake._

_His son or not, Stevie’s a loose cannon and a liability._

_One rule of being a professional crook, don’t be stupid, and know when to cut your losses … that’s two rules actually._

“Probably not until he’s got the money for the passports,” Jess countered, “At least one more bank robbery.” He pulled his reading glasses from his shirt pocket and slipping them on, bent over to study one of the many files covering the table top. “Ahhhh … the bank job they got arrested for, the one in New Haven three months ago, netted them what?"

“Uh, they cleared almost a mill,” Kenny replied, stepping away from the table toward one of the many white-boards that covered the walls on that end of the bus. A white-board marker squeaked as he started doing something on one of the boards.

“And they were caught with eight-hundred-and-forty grand …” Noted Jess.

“Take away the 50K for the passports …” Added Kenny.

_What’s he doing?_

_Ah, figures._

_What’s unaccounted for …_

“Right,” Jess confirmed.

“That still leaves a hundred grand unaccounted for,” Barnes noted, leaning back in her chair and studying the blackboard and the figures Kenny had just done.

_Just over, but who’s counting_.

“Money that they might have paid to an inside man for information on the bank job,” Jess concluded.

_Yep_.

“Lot of people with slightly shady morals or with some pressing needs would be happy to cough up information for one-hundred grand,” Kateri mused, pushing back from the table and rising, stretching out a kink in her back as she did so. _You’re slumping again_.

Jess nodded and then shut the folder he’d been looking at with a snap of paper, “Can you cue up the New Haven bank job?”

“Yeaa,” Kenny responded, edging around behind Jess to get back to his desk, “Give me a sec.”

A few seconds of clacking keys later, and the security-camera footage came up on Kenny’s large monitor. Kateri studied the footage as it played out, looking for anything that they might have missed on previous run-throughs of the footage, anything that might have seemed insignificant before but that might be more significant given what they had recently learned.

_Bomb vest gets put on security guard._

_Gun goes off right by guard’s head._

_Guard flinches … not surprising._

“Blow it up,” Jess requested, “Play it real slow.”

_Guard’s clutching his ear._

_Blood on his hand._

_Gun going off right by your head probably’d make you half-deaf, at least._

_Deaf!_

_Gun blast + bloody hand … one person with a hearing aid on his left side._

“He’s bleeding!” Kenny verbalized what had been running through Kateri’s head, “Blown ear-drum. That’s our man.”

* * *

New Haven, Connecticut, was a two-hour drive from Providence, which gave the team plenty of time to dig into the security guard and his background over the course of the drive. The nameless security guard in the security footage from the bank job was Larry Green. He lived in a nice, suburban house with a pretty blue door and a yard full of flowering shrubs, a nice hour on a quiet street. Jess and Barnes went inside to speak with Mr. Green, while Kateri and Clinton looked around outside and Kenny stayed with the cars, doing something on his tablet.

As Kateri and Clinton were coming back around the far side of the house after making a slow sweep of the house and yard, there was a crash of a door opening suddenly and with force, and then the fleeing form of a hefty black man in a hoody appeared, bolting as fast as he could down the steps down to street level.

_Oh, bloody h**l_.

“FBI! Freeze!” Clinton shouted, bolting after him.

Swearing mentally and wondering why so many perps thought that trying to run was a worthwhile endeavor … _not exactly effective 99% of the time, ‘specially for someone his size_ … Kateri bolted down the steps, going as fast as she dared without risking tripping and falling flat on her face. She turned the corner onto the sidewalk about two paces behind Clinton, using one hand on the railing to steady herself on the sharp turn, and accelerated her pace.

That was kind of a mistake.

Kenny appeared out of nowhere from between the two SUVs, and Green ran smack dab into Kenny’s extended arm and basically knocked himself off his feet. Neither Kateri or Clinton had been expecting Kenny to come out of nowhere, and since both were bolting to catch up, Clinton was forced to basically stop in his tracks and actually jump a step backwards to keep from becoming the next domino in the falling chain as Green went down. Kateri almost fell backwards, in her attempt to stop on a dime, as she stutter-stepped backwards. She made a frantic grab for one pole of the wrought iron fence railing to steady herself.

_Bloody h**l!_

Her heart had leapt almost into her throat, Kenny’s sudden appearance and the sudden take-down almost scaring the life out of her, and Kateri forced herself to take a deep breath.

_Bloody h**l!_

As Kateri caught her breath and steadied herself, Kenny and Clinton dragged Green to his feet and forced him up against the side of the SUV as they quickly searched him for any weapons.

“We’ll take that as an admission of guilt,” announced Jess, who with Barnes had emerged from the house at a more sedate pace.

_Whole thing was over in seconds._

_Wasn’t really time for them to join the pursuit_.

“It’s an admission of nothing,” Green snapped back, “Okay, it was a panic attack. I have PTSS to this day because of that bank robbery.”

Kateri’s eyebrow flew up to her hairline, and she starred at Green’s back, skepticism and disbelief clear in her face and almost oozing from every pore in her body. _Seriously?!_

_I have PTSS, and I have panic attacks, but last time I checked, they don’t make you run from law enforcement._

_Make you freeze up, sure. Run like a rabbit, uhhhh … Timing is rather suspicious._

“Come on, Blake Wilson’s girlfriend described you,” Barnes countered, pointing back towards the house, “She described your house!”

“What are you talking about?” Green seemed genuinely puzzled.

“After your injury, Tilling Security gave you a desk job at their corporate office,” Jess pressed the point as Clinton opened the back door of the SUV and pressed Green into a seat inside, “You have intel on dozens of banks.”

“I didn’t help Blake Wilson,” Green continued to argue.

_Seriously?_

_Just cooperate, and this’ll be quicker for us and easier for you!_

“Don’t make us look for your cut from the New Haven job,” Clinton ordered … forcefully.

“I spent it, alright?!” Green continued to argue the same line, “I bought my mom a new condo, but I didn’t help Blake Wilson.”

_Oh, welllll, that makes it all better._

_Not._

A frown replaced Kateri’s earlier puzzled look. She found it noteworthy that Green was continuing to consistently … _emphasis on the consistent …_ argue the same line: _He says he didn’t help Blake_. Kateri was good at reading people and dissecting words and expressions, and Green’s tone and face were backing up what his words were saying.

_What the h**l?_

“I helped Stevie,” Green finished.

_Oh._

_Oh_ _._

_Bloody h**l_.

There was a beat of silence as all the agents, including Kateri, gathered around the back of the SUV absorbed that statement.

“You helped Stevie rob banks?” Jess asked as confirmation, his face puzzled.

“Me and Stevie used to work at a club up in Hartford,” Green explained, “I did security. He bussed tables. When I got the job at the bank, Stevie started telling me about his pops, how he was getting out of jail and how he thought he could talk him into hitting my bank.”

_The profile on Stevie just keeps getting more complicated._

_He’s turning into the ring-leader and the planner, not just the hot-head?_

“It was his idea? He reached out to Blake?” Questioned Jess.

“Yes,” Green responded … sincerely, “all he talked about was his dad, how he wanted to be just like him,”— _how very interesting. Blake’s ex warned us about this all the way back at the beginning, how Stevie worshiped his father_ —“He said it was in his blood, for g*d’s sake,”— _seriously?_ —“Got to admit …” Green paused, his face twisting, “Blake’s pretty good. He came up with the whole bomb vest thing. It was pretty slick, right?”

_I don’t think ‘slick’ would be the adjective I’d pick_.

“Then Blake found out you had no money left?” Asked the boss.

“I thought he’d kill me,” Green replied in a tone of utter sincerity, “But Stevie stepped up for me, and that’s what saved me. I just had to give up some information on some banks.”

_Yeaa, that wouldn’t go over well._

_Blake’s getting a little desperate, I expect._

_Waitttttt … Stevie?_

_How many is some?_

“How many?” Barnes posed the question that was probably on all their minds about now.

“Three.”

_Bloody h**l._

_Gotta narrow that down._

_‘Least it’s not more._

* * *

It was another two-hour’s long drive back to Providence, Rhode Island, where Larry Green was handed over to the care of other FBI agents, and after buying lunch … _more hamburgers. Sometimes I wonder how I haven’t gotten sick of hamburgers I’ve eaten them so many times per week the last five years_ … the team returned to the bus.

“It’s been almost 36 hours,” Kenny wondered aloud later soon after everyone had finished eating, “What are the Wilsons waiting for?”

_With them, who the h**l knows …_

“They should have struck by now,” Barnes added, “Maybe Blake figured we got to Jeri, and it’s got him spooked.”

Jess was pacing the length of the bus, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and had been for a little while. He finished one length, pivoting next to the conference table at the end of the bus where Barnes, Kateri, and Clinton were, and started back towards Hana and Kenny. “Spooked or not,” he replied, “they need money to get out of the country, and they’re running out of time. And not to mention, his trigger-happy son is probably pushing him to do something.”

_Hot-heads are the worst._

Kateri looked up from her laptop and her work helping Kenny study the three banks that Green had coughed up intel on. One hand reached up to massage her forehead. A headache was building up behind her eyes after spending the entire drive back from New Haven, lunch, and all the time since then starring at her computer, working. _IB can’t kick in soon enough. Bloody h**l_.

“Maybe it’s a bank we missed,” Jess mused, finishing another length of the bus and starting a new on, “Maybe it’s one they already scouted.”

“When?” Kateri asked, swiveling her chair toward the aisle and stretching out a kink in her back, _Slumping’s not helping your headache_ , “Blake’s gone straight from jail, to a bank job, to life on the run.”

_Doesn’t exactly leave time for careful scouting and planning of potential new jobs_.

“Maybe it’s Stevie,” Jess wondered. _Thinking aloud again, boss?_ “He’s wanted to fill his father’s shoes since way before he got out of prison.”

_Maybe_.

“It was in his blood,” said Clinton.

_So he says_.

That seemed to stop Jess in his tracks as he finished another length of the bus up by Kenny and Hana’s chairs. He stood stock-still for several seconds before finally pivoting. “Maybe he struck out on his own in Hartford,” he mused, sinking into the seat beside Hana, “Got some work experience. Can you pull up …”

“Bank robberies in Hartford?” Hana finished his sentence/question/thing at the same time her fingers started to fly across her keyboard.

Letting Barnes past first, Kateri pushed herself from her seat with a sigh, stretching her back again and rubbing her forehead again with one hand. _Let’s go see what Hana finds_. A hand settled on her shoulder. She looked over and up. Clinton was looking at her with a concerned frown on his face.

“You okay, kid?” He asked in Mohawk.

Kateri nodded, “Just a headache. I took something.”

Everyone gathered around Hana’s desk to see what she had found. With accesses to all the databases that the team had, it took her only seconds to discover the information she was seeking: two bank robberies in Hartford during that period … _suspects in custody. So not Stevie boy_ … and one attempted robbery at Green Mountain Savings and Loan where the suspect escaped.

With a few key strokes, Hana brought up an image of the suspect from the Green Mountain job off extant security camera footage, “Here he is.”

_Hoodie, baseball cap, sunglasses, and a mask._

_Doesn’t make identifying him very easily._

_Well …. Skin color’s right._

_Build looks similar_.

“Could be him,” Kenny noted, “Looks like he lost his nerve.”

Jess gestured with one finger toward the screen, “But he would have done his homework on that bank. Research that would come in right handy about now.”

_That it would_.

“Call Hartford PD,” Jess ordered, “Get them out to that bank ASAP.”

Clinton stepped away to place the call, and Kateri hurried back toward her and Clinton’s desk and started gathering and repacking their stuff. _Guessing we’ll be bugging out right quickly_.

* * *

The conclusion that the Wilsons would go after Green Mountain Savings and Loan in Hartford proved to be correct, but the team’s warning to the local police department was not in time. By the time the team arrived at the bank about an hour later after flying into the local airport, the standoff between the Wilsons and the police was already ongoing, as the team’s SUVs pulled to a stop in front of the bank, and everyone piled out.

_Bloody h**l._

_Lot of LEOs and agents._

Another FBI agent, a tall woman ( _maybe Hispanic?_ ) with hair pulled back into the kind of neat bun that Kateri had never been able to manage to tame her hair into … _even when my hair was long enough for one_ … introduced herself as Amy Kilday, approaching Jess to update him on the situation as soon as the team arrived, “We’re about 30 minutes into the standoff. We made at least two bad guys through the window. The area is secure. Snipers are in place.”

“I’ll join you guys up top,” said Clinton, his main sniper rifle, a Remi M24, held carefully in one hand.

“Okay,” Jess nodded assent, his attention going back to Agent Kilday, “Is there a hostage negotiator on site?”

Even as the two spoke, Clinton looked over at his partner for a moment, mouthing ‘Be careful.’ Kateri nodded, a touch of a smile curling up the corners of her mouth, and gave him a look that indicated, ‘You, too.’

_Wilsons aren’t snipers, so there’s not a threat to our snipers, but still …_

Kateri would be glad to have her partner up topside watching their backs. It wasn’t that she mistrusted the other snipers, but when Clinton couldn’t be at her side, she was glad to have him watching her back from behind a rifle scope.

Kilday motioned to another man standing near, whose uniform indicated he was a cop, not another agent. “Lieutenant Thomas, State Police.”

_Would not want to have your job today._

_Not with the Wilsons_.

_Not sure I’d want your job any day._

“Agent LaCroix,” Jess introduced himself quickly, “Any contact?”

Thomas shook his head, “We’ve tried. Nothing but silence on the other end.”

Before more could be said, a single gunshot rang out from the direction of the bank, immediately followed by high-pitched screams. _Oh, bloody h**l_. Kateri, who was standing next to Kenny, instinctively ducked like everyone else, her hand going to her Glock, though she didn’t draw. A few seconds passed, and then the frosted-over door of the bank opened, and a limp body was tossed out.

_Oh, bloody h**l_.

The body count of the Wilsons had just gone up one.

A second later the phone in the negotiator’s hand began to ring and buzz. Thomas hit call connect and held the phone out between him and Jess so that they both could hear. The voice that spoke was young and brisk. _Stevie_. “I’ll shoot one every half-hour until our demands are met. We’ll call you back with a list.” A dial tone followed.

_Bloody, bloody h**l_.

There was another beat of silence. Then Jess asked, “May I?” with a tilt of his head toward the phone in Thomas’ hand. It was immediately handed over. Jess redialed a number and pressed the phone to his ear.

The following speech was classic Jess, somehow drawing the line … _that I couldn’t do well_ … between serious, not overly confrontational, and ‘wake up and get your head on straight.’

“Steven Wilson, this is Agent LaCroix of the FBI. I am taking over these negotiations. You need to listen to me very carefully. You’re not dealing with the state police anymore. This is the FBI so you’re going to have to put your big boy pants, Stevie. I will not consider any of your demands until you let us remove that person from the front of the bank. This is a serious negotiation for your lives and the lives of your hostages. I will not let you turn this into a spectacle. Are we clear?”

_Bloody h**l._

_That’s some speech, boss_.

There was a beat of silence for several seconds. “Good.” Jess turned to Barnes and gave a nod, and Barnes turned to Kilday, telling her to send SWAT forward to retrieve the body.

Kateri almost held her breath as four SWAT officers moved forward from the nearest barricade to retrieve the body, two dragging, two covering. She touched her pockets with her off hand as they moved, double-checking that her medical supplies were in place. _SWAT’ll have a medic or two. I’m not sure if this situation counts as secure enough or not for EMS to come right now. Don’t see any ambos nearby_. A few more seconds passed, and the officers moved out of direct line of fire from the door and quickly reached the cover of their van. _Thank God._

Once SWAT was clear, Jess turned, the phone still pressed to his ear, and walked away from the bank. _Didn’t realize he was still on the phone with Stevie_. (Kateri was still standing near Jess and Barnes, waiting for instructions or waiting for something that her skillset was useful for.)

“Now,” Jess declared, pacing away, the local negotiator and Barnes moving with him, “I don’t believe that your father is with you. I don’t think he trusts you anymore after you botched that job last year, and you lost your nerve.”

_Uhhhh, bosssssss. What are you doing?_

_I’m all for wake-up calls, but you usually advise against poking fingers in eyes_.

“Prove it,” Jess almost snapped after Stevie must have answered his last statements, “Put him on the phone.”

As they waited, Kateri and the others returned to the SUVs where they had left their bags and all the files they had brought from the bus a little while before.

“Blake Wilson. Agent LaCroix. You know we have Jeri Eaton in custody? You curious to know what’s happening with her,” Jess paused, pressing a hand over the microphone, “Passport.” He whispered.

Kenny held up two fingers a second later. _We’ve got both with us. Good. Thought so, but we packed up right quickly_. The passports would have been a disastrous thing to leave behind.

“Well, thanks to Jeri, we’re all caught up on who’s behind the body count,” Jess moved away from the car again, closing the passenger’s side door with a thump, “Killing the hostage. That’s was Stevie’s idea?”

_Drive a wedge between Blake and Stevie._

_Stevie’s going off the deep end._

_Are you hoping Blake can be an inside man?_

_Turn on Stevie? Give himself up??_

It was always interesting just listening to just Jess’ side of the conversation with a perp.

“You know I know that there’s no way out of there alive unless you play this as smart as I think you are.”

Kateri readjusted her scarf as Jess spoke, tucking it in closer around her neck and under her coat so there was as little skin exposed as she could. _Bloody cold this afternoon. Sun going down won’t help. Least it’s not that windy. That’ll help the snipers, too_. She stuffed her hands into her pockets and resisted the urge to stomp her feet. _Connecticut’s bloody cold. Shoulda worn two pairs of socks_. This January was cold and only getting colder as the month passed, or so it seemed.

“Let me offer you a way out.” A long pause. “Let me come in an negotiate.”

Kateri winced, _Oh, bloody h**l. Seriously, boss?_ She appreciated his ability to empathize and connect with the people the team hunted; understood that most perpetrators they pursued were not one-dimensional, 100% evil nutsos. _But … Stevie’s a loose cannon … doors are frosted_. She glanced back at the bank quickly, eyeballing the windows, and then up and around at the surrounding buildings. There was a flash of sunlight high-up on one of the shorter buildings.

_Scope reflection._

_How good’s their angle?_

She swallowed hard. Jess’ plays were usually successful, but this … this was a risk.

_Can they cover Jess?_

Jess pulled the phone away from his, the conversation at an end. “Let’s get wired up,” he told Kenny, who jogged off to the SUVs to get the necessary equipment.

“You sure?” Confirmed Barnes, her voice drifting over.

“Sounds like Stevie wants to go out in a blaze of glory,” Jess replied. _Sounds like a good reason NOT to go in_ , “Not Blake. I don’t think he can shake his son without some help.”

_This’ll be interesting._ Kateri crossed herself quickly, automatically. _Not the good kind of interesting_.

* * *

The sun had fully set by the time everything had been prepared; everyone, including the snipers, had been briefed; and Jess was ready to go in, passports in a small envelope tucked in his jacket. Kateri stood behind the police car nearest the bank, next to her teammates, as Jess moved out into the open, into the line of fire _if this goes bad and Stevie starts shooting_ , toward the bank. Hana had patched all their comms into the feed coming from Jess’ wire so _we can hear everything that’s said in there … hopefully_. (Wires like comms were not immune to technical problems, and sometimes tech problems happened at the worst possible moments.) Kateri reached up one hand to touch where her cross hung around her neck. She knew it was there, though she couldn’t exactly feel it, buried as it was under shirt, scarf, and parka.

_St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil_ .

The bank door opened, and Jess disappeared inside. 

_May God rebuke him we humbly pray_ .

“I want a car to the airport,” Stevie’s voice came clearly over the feeds a few seconds later, “And a chopper to anywhere we want.”

“I can’t do that,” Jess’ voice was calm, level, his best negotiator persona on, though Kateri was quite sure he probably had at least one gun, maybe two, pointed at him right now. He would have become the greater threat as soon as he stepped inside, possibly even more important than keeping the hostages controlled with guns on them. 

_And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan_

“But I’m willing to meet you half-way,” Jess continued, the faint sound of rustling clothing in the background. _He’s probably being searched_. “You release the hostages, and I’ll secure an exit for one of you. Which one of you, you can decide. That’s up to you guys. There’s only one criminal we want.”

There was the faint sound of a hostage crying out in the background of the audio feed.

_and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls_ . _Amen._

“You think I’m just going to leave my dad behind?” Stevie asked sharply.

_Stevie, of course, thinks the ‘criminal’ the FBI wants is his father._

_Blake, of course, thinks the ‘criminal’ the FBI wants is Stevie because he’s the one primarily responsible for the mayhem and murder the last week_ .

“Stevie, look at me,” Blake’s voice was lower, gruffer, “Look at me, Stevie. I’m not afraid to go back. It’s what I know.”

The conversation between Stevie and Blake devolved into an argument at that point. Stevie, who idolized his father … _talk about a scary lesson for parents … whatever they do, always gotta think about the lessons kids learn from us … I wanna do what Mommy, Daddy does …_ was intent on not letting his father take the fall. Blake, who almost sounded sincere about his failing as a father … _I’m still suspicious if he actually means a word he’s saying or’s just putting on a show, hoping to get out of there_ … said that he did not want to rob his son of his future … _like you haven’t already in so many ways_. Stevie refused the deal, stating that though he knew he had let his father down before, he was not going to make that mistake again.

“No deal,” Stevie snapped.

_Okay, Plan #B now_

_Passports._

“I’m offering you a way out,” Jess’ voice was still calm and level despite the rising ire in Stevie’s voice. _You probably could have done a good job as an undercover operative … most of the time. Always gotta stay calm under pressure, under fire …. Not necessarily of the lead variety. You react wrongly at the wrong time … you can blow your cover, get yourself killed_. “You willing to die to save your father from jail.”

This case had a very personal angle for Jess: deadbeat dad + son who idolizes him lead astray.

_Haven’t heard as many references about your father, childhood as on this case in a long time_ .

“Damn right,” Stevie responded.

“You’re a good kid, Stevie,” Jess answered. _Careful, boss._ (Kateri knew the risks of letting cases get too close, knew the risks of letting cases get too personal on the basis of elements like that.) _Complicated father-son dynamics … hits close to home._ “Better than he deserves. Did he tell you what he had planned?”

This was where the plan got risky.

Blake only had two passports. One for himself. The other for Jeri. He had cut his own son out.

How was the hot-headed Stevie going to react?

_Jess’ got a vest, but vests can’t do everything at close range._

_Doesn’t help with head shots. Or protect the femoral artery_ .

_Or the carotid. Or the neck._

It was times like this, thoughts like those when Kateri really hated being an almost-medic. She felt her stomach lurch at the thought of losing one of her teammates and swallowed hard, forcing her mind away from nasty rabbit-trails.

There was a long beat of silence. Kateri glanced over at Barnes, whose face was pinched in concern and concentration, and then up at Kenny, who was standing next to her.

_Je vous salue, Marie, pleine de grâces, le Seigneur est avec vous;_

“Did you tell him?” Jess asked, probably speaking to Blake.

_vous ętes bénie entre toutes les femmes, et Jésus le fruit de vos entrailles, est béni._

Another loooonnnnngggg beat of silence that did nothing good for Kateri’s blood pressure.

_Sainte Marie, Mčre de Dieu, priez pour nous pécheurs, maintenant, et ŕ l'heure de notre mort._

Rattling paper.

_Amen._

Footsteps.

Finally, Jess’s voice came again over the wire, “Jeri lead us to the Albanians who were making passports for your father. There’s two passports here. One for Blake. And there’s another one here for … wellllll, you tell me …”

_Jeri_ .

_Blake decided to leave his son out to dry, and now that decision’s coming back to bite him in the a**_ .

A long beat of silence over the wire. The only sound in Kateri’s ears was the beating of her own heart and the wind in the night air, cutting through her coat.

“There’s no passport for you, Stevie. Jeri told us that Blake was planning on killing you before he got to the border.”

_Well, no, she didn’t actually say that, butttt … it works for the narrative Jess’ trying to spin_ .

“No,” Blake protested, “Nobody was going to try to kill you. The plan was to come back for you.” His explanation, to Kateri’s ears, sounded somewhat forced, and she began to wonder if maybe the story they were spinning wasn’t actually that far from the truth after all.

Faintly in the background there was the sound of heaving breaths. _Stevie? His world just got rocked. Father he idolizes was going to hang him out to dry, if not kill him_.

A few more seconds passed. A few only half-intelligible words came in the background.

Then …

“Whoa!” Blake’s voice was almost-shocked, a little fearful.

Jess’ reply came a beat later, “Don’t do it, Stevie.”

Kateri knew in an instant what must have happened. Feeling betrayed by the earth-shaking revelations of the last sixty seconds, Stevie had just turned his gun on his father.

_Bloody, bloody h**l_ .

“Nobody needs to die here,” Jess continued, “Just give me the gun.”

A gun-shot rang out, and Kateri instinctively flinched. Her left hand shot to her gun, the other hand flying up toward her ear in a quickly aborted move. _Bloody h**l!! Boss?!_

The voice that cried out a moment later wasn’t Jess’.

_Thank bloody h**l_ .

“You, stupid … what’d you do that for?” Cried Blake, his voice tight with pain.

_Okay, assuming this doesn’t end up going even more wrong …_

_Two hostiles. As soon as Blake and Stevie’re contained, one of the other’s will cover me._

_I can help Blake until SWAT medic gets in—they’ve gotta have one here. EMS should be here soon_ _after the scene’s contained_.

Kateri glanced around quickly.

_Oh, EMS’ already here_ .

_Leave it to the professionals, then._

“You were really just gonna get rid of me?” Hollered Stevie.

“I … I shoulda walked away when you came looking for me,” Blake responded, “This couldn’t have worked out worse if I’d tried.” He gave a low groan, “Weak, pathetic.”

_You’re not exactly helping yourself here, Blake._

_Are you asking to get shot again?_

_Maybe this time fatally? At least, fatally in much shorter order?_

“Don’t do it, Steven?” Jess’ voice was calm, “I know you want to, and I know why.”

“I’m going to go away for the rest of my life, so why not?” Stevie exclaimed. _A reasonable question_.

_Having to take a human life is bad enough … even for us in this job._

_Murdering someone, killing your own father whatever he did to you … bloody h**l_ .

_That’ll stick with you._

“Because then I’ll have to kill you, and I don’t want to do that,” Jess responded. _A good answer, too._ “Trust me. He’s not worth it.” 

_Not worth wasting lead on_ .

A few sobs.

A few unintelligible words.

“I know,” said Jess, “I hear you. All he does is take. From you. From your Mom. You kill him. He takes everything. You hear me, Steven? … Steven, do you hear me? It’s better for him to live with what he’s done.”

A clatter.

The words everyone had been waiting for: “We’re clear.”

_Bloody h**l_ .

_Thank God_ .

The team moved in, guns still up, covering each other as they passed through the narrow doorway into the bank. Jess was standing near the door, gun covering Stevie who was standing a couple of yards away. Blake was on the floor, back against a nearby wall, a growing blood stain on his abdomen.

_Bloody h**l_ .

Kenny cuffed Stevie and marched him out, while a SWAT medic and a local paramedic moved to treat Blake once he was searched quickly but thoroughly and found to have no hidden weapons. _Not much he could do now. Still don’t want any surprises_.

Once the scene was fully secure, Kateri reholstered her gun and turned to Jess. “You good, boss?”

He nodded.

“You got me out alive.” Blake’s voice, gruff and tight with pain, interrupted before Kateri could say anything more.

Jess turned to Blake, a look Kateri couldn’t interpret in his eyes. “Trust me. It wasn’t your life I was trying to save.”

_You see yourself in Stevie?_

_See what you could have been?_ Kateri wondered as they stepped back outside into the freezing night air. She glanced up at the stars and the moon shining down and crossed herself again automatically.

_With Billy as my best friend for a long time … I feel that_ .

_Our pasts shape us, influence us, but they don’t have to totally define us, don’t have to control us._

_We can be more than our parent’s children._

_We can be more than the fruits of a messed-up childhood._

It was a lesson Kateri had told herself many times over the course of her life.

On some bad days it was a lesson she still reminded herself of.


End file.
